Are You Fire Tender or Wet Wood?

by Susan Martin
All For His Glory Ministries Speaker/Trainer

My goal is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death …
Philippians 3:10

Let me tell you about my friend Liz. I love to hear her say Jesus’ name. Why is that? When I hear Liz say “Lord Jesus,” she says it with such a fiery passion, love and knowledge of Him that it literally drips off her lips! She says it like a woman speaks the name of the One she knows intimately, dearly and completely. You can hear all of this in her voice, and you KNOW that she LOVES Him. There is no doubt.

I want to know Him like that. I want to know Him so intimately that when people hear me say His name they have no doubt that I love Him. I want to make them desire to know Him like I do.

How does that happen? 1 John 2:3-6 says that we have come to know Him when we obey His commands. Why is it that we know Him when we obey Him? Well, when we choose to obey His commands rather than the commands of our own desires, we have to trust and rely on Him to walk us through our obedience and reveal Himself to us. Our reward is that we are successful in our act of obedience, and our character becomes more like His. This is called the fellowship of His sufferings.

Let me give you example. When my son died after a sudden brief illness, my desire was to die also. But God said “NO!” I had to trust Him and ask Him to take my hand and walk me through each moment of every day by HIS power in order not to give into my own desire, which was to follow my child in death.

Jesus denied Himself when He chose to obey the Father’s will and die for us. We deny ourselves when we choose to obey Him. The more we do this, the more we know Him. The more He reveals Himself to us and we see His character, we know it is His power working through us. And we are amazed by His power working through us! We wonder what took us so long to trust and obey Him. We find ourselves so in love with Him and His character. We are so amazed at the character He is developing in us that we cannot say His name without fiery PASSION dripping from our lips! People hear that fiery, passionate love in our voice, and they want it! You light a fire for Christ in others with your passionate knowledge of Him. You become fire tender.

• Where in your life do you need to step out in faith and obey Him? In your marriage? In your job? In your personal relationship with Christ?

• When you say His name, can people hear the fire for Him in your voice? Or is your expression like wet wood unable to ignite?