Prayer on Fire by Fred Hartley

Author:Fred Hartley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781576839607
Publisher: The Navigators

Human Counterfeits

There are also examples of human efforts to impersonate the activity of God. Sometimes we try to get our mitts on God’s holy stuff.

I can remember sitting offstage awaiting my PTL Club television interview about a book I had recently written. Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker were chatting onstage about how the past month’s statistics showed that their TV show had registered more professions of faith in Christ than Billy Graham’s, Robert Schuller’s, Jimmy Swaggart’s, Pat Robertson’s, or anyone else’s. Tammy Faye gloated, “Jim, that means God is using you more than anyone else in the world.” Jim just sat there with his sheepish grin and nodded in agreement. Something smelled wrong. I was not surprised months later when their ministry collapsed and their marriage ended with Jim behind bars.11 What happened?

I believe God was genuinely using the Bakkers, but they touched the fire. In the past several years, Jim has repented and even through his prison sentence has genuinely encountered God’s manifest presence.

Jim and Tammy Faye are not the only ones to cross the invisible line of demarcation separating the holy and the common. The name the Bible uses for this irreverent gesture is “unauthorized fire.”12 Today it happens when people casually touch God’s flaming presence or attempt to manipulate His activity for personal gain.

Be assured that nothing draws God’s ire like false fire. I know it rhymes, but it’s true nonetheless. The fire of God’s presence is much too precious for Him to sit back and let us manhandle it. Anyone with a cavalier attitude toward God’s special stuff is in for a rude awakening. Like cheap perfume that makes a boyfriend want to push away, faking God’s presence is a stench in His nostrils. False fire normally makes Him want to push away, and at times it even makes His blood boil.

It is unfortunate that some of us may have been introduced to the counterfeit first, but we shouldn’t allow the false to immunize us against the genuine. The answer to false fire—whether of demonic or human origin—is not the rejection of the manifestations of God’s presence, but the embracing of holy fire. When the genuine fire is generated when the Holy Spirit ignites our hearts, we no longer have any need to mess with—or fear—the counterfeits.

So, what would it look like to take our faith, the Bible, and our prayer lives out of the box? That’s an exciting question.

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