August 28 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

Devotional

The whole material universe will be shaken to pieces someday. Only the unshakable things will survive. The kingdom of Jesus Christ belongs to the order of things that cannot be shaken. And we have received this kingdom. We have been taken up in the eternity of the new order that Christ has established.

Our awesome God will accomplish this. God will destroy the temporary world in order to reveal the abiding city. That's the new country to which God has called us. "Let us be thankful" and worship God. Not only must our offering of worship proceed from a heart of gratitude, it must be acceptable in God's sight. In other words, we need a clear awareness of God's holiness.

We need to be thankful, but we also need a deep sense of the true character of God, for our "God is a consuming fire." The One who spoke from Mount Sinai and who has spoken his last word in Jesus Christ is the white heat of purity that consumes everything unworthy of himself.

God will burn up all that is temporal and all that is false.

And anyone who wants to be identified with the temporal and the impure will burn in the same heat.

Our style of living and worshiping will show whether we know God as a consuming fire. If we are truly aware that no impurity and falsehood can exist before him, we will pray and strive to be filled with God's holiness. We will ask to be guided through the world and beg to be kept in the kingdom of Christ Jesus.

We will also learn, reverently and humbly, how to talk about this aspect of God's character. It is not much discussed these days. But it is less than "honest to God" to ignore the fire.

Perhaps there are some people who despise the grace of God partly because Christians have painted such a harmless picture of the Eternal One. Maybe if they had an inkling of the truth, they would listen now, while it is called "today."

REFLECTIONS

How does your style of living and worshiping show that you know God as a consuming fire?

Andrew Kuyvenhoven's Daylight, a modern devotional classic, was originally published by Paideia Press in 1977. This updated edition is copyright 2009 by Faith Alive Christian Resources. You can order a copy of this revised version of the book directly from the publisher.

A man of many accomplishments, Andrew Kuyvenhoven is probably best known for his contributions to Today (formerly The Family Altar), a widely-used monthly devotional booklet associated with the Back to God Hour. Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations for this updated edition of Daylight are from the Holy Bible: Today's New International Version copyright 2001, 2005 by the International Bible Society.