I will be taking a trip down memory lane this week, so please take a walk with me…

A long time ago, prior to Journey, I was in a band that played for my church’s youth group and pretty much any other event we could find that would let us play. Our current series reminded me of one the songs we used to play, “Consuming Fire” by Third Day. (The music video is included at the end of this post for your listening enjoyment.)

The chorus for the song states:

And yes our God, He is a consuming fire

And the flames burn down deep in my soul

Yes our God, He is a consuming fire

He reaches inside and He melts down this cold heart of stone.

Our God is a consuming fire. He consumes our unrighteousness and creates us as a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us this:

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.[a] The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

At small group this week, we were discussing how we become what we worship. I shared the following, which I came across on the website DesiringGod.org:

In whole-life worship of God, our minds are being transformed, and we are being conformed to the image of Christ (see Colossians 3:10). In the act of idolatry, as a heart worships a created image, it is being conformed to the world in its unnatural twistedness (see Romans 1:18–27).

-Tony Reinke

As Mark discussed this Sunday, this consuming effect works both ways. When we worship God, he consumes us and makes us more righteous. And when we worship other things, we get consumed and typically become more unrighteous.

Worship is so much more than the music we play and sing on Sunday morning. Worship is living a life in adoration of our God, every single second. It’s the way we carry ourselves knowing that we are God’s creation, it’s the way we order our coffee, it’s the way we (reluctantly) forgive those that cut us off in traffic, it’s everything – living a life that is pleasing to the One we say we adore.

Be consumed. Be renewed.

Richard Jacobs
Worship Pastor