Rain & Fire

Rain and Fire

Rain is for refreshing and nourishing, and growing. Fire is for refining or burning. Yet I believe the Lord is speaking to me about rain and fire. You see, rain brings and births the fire. Rain brings gentle new birth, new life, and growth. Fire brings sudden change. Both rain and fire are analogous of the work of the Holy Spirit within our church and within our own lives.

Rain brings gentle new birth, new life, and growth. With rain nothing sudden happens. Rain gently softens the planted seed, awakens the life within the seed, births a new plant, and watches it grow. Yet plants grow slowly and more rain is needed to ensure that the once seed, now seedling plant, continues to grow and strengthen until, some considerable time later, the plant has grown to fruition. Holy Spirit brings refreshing rain upon our lives. He softens our hearts until the seed planted within us, springs to life and we grow in faith and in belief until (almost) suddenly, we start to yearn for deeper things of God, for His presence, for His glory, and for Him to move in our lives and the lives of those around us. This is when the rain of God produces the fire of God.

Fire brings sudden change. Holy Spirit is often described as bringing Holy Spirit fire into our situation. Revival is the extreme example of Holy Spirit fire but look what happens when He does bring fire. In recent times we have seen revivals in Argentina, in Toronto Canada, in Brownsville Florida, in China and other places. God moved sovereignly in these places to such an extent that literally millions of people world wide were swept into God’s Kingdom. It is worthy of note that, when revival hit town, all of what was considered ‘normal church activity’ was simply swept aside by the power of Holy Spirit moving on a hungry and willing people. Schedules were torn up, plans were wrecked, meetings that used to last 2 hours suddenly flowed into each other and became one long meeting. Sunday lunch became a very unlikely moveable feast! Prayer meetings carried over into the small hours – nobody wanted to leave in case they missed something Holy Spirit wanted to bring.

Thus we can see that rain brings new life and eventually births the fire. Fire brings sudden and dramatic changes to a usually not very ready church that is willing to move with Holy Spirit when He moves. Revival in which people are willing to pay the price of disruption lasts much longer than that in which people are more reserved. In this latter case, the Spirit is quenched, grieved and then withdraws again. He cannot move where He is not very welcome.

So I believe the Lord is saying this to us today, “If My people are willing to allow me to bring some rain into their lives then I will grow and nurture them Myself. If then, they continue to grow and to allow me to move, I will germinate their seed and detonate My fire amongst them. If then they are willing to pay the price, then I will send revival. Do not do this for your usual ‘quick Holy Spirit thrill’, for I am serious and I am seeking only those who are serious about Me. When I send revival, your lives will change for ever, and thousands and millions shall be brought into My Kingdom.”