God of Fire

God is love. And His love burns like a fire for His holy place and people. 

But when someone like Zechariah says such a thing from the Lord - that His love is like a fire burning within Him (8:1) - what does that even mean? 

First, it means that His love is all-consuming. Fire eats up everything in its path and spreads until there's nothing left to feed it. There are very few substances in this world that can persist through fire's consuming flame (a few metals, for example, and three or so guys from Israel...). For the most part, fire takes up everything in its path and leaves very little behind. 

So when we talk about God's love being like a fire, we have to understand it takes up every square inch of Him. It fills Him. It consumes every single iota of His being because it is fueled by who He is.

Second, it means that His love is provisional. That is, it provides something for those of us who receive it. 

This, I think, is two-fold. First, it provides warmth, the kind of warmth that spreads through our souls. Remember when the guys were on the road to Emmaus after Jesus died, and they were talking with this stranger who turns out to be Jesus, and they said to each other, "Didn't we feel strangely warm while talking to Him?" That's the fire of God's love. It burns so wholly that it makes us warm. 

It also provides a means for us. Fire, as all-consuming as it can be, can also do a lot of very beneficial things for us. It is a way, for example, to cook food. It is a way to refine impurities in metal so that it can be used for other things. It is a way to harden pottery so that it can be useful. It burns gasoline in our cars so that we can drive places. Our lives are fueled by fire in a bunch of small and big ways. 

In the same way, our lives are fueled by God's love. God's love nourishes us, provides for us, makes our lives possible. It gives us the resources we need to do the things that God desires for us to do...and the things we want to do for Him. 

Third, fire is a light in the darkness. Have you ever noticed how many candles it takes to light up a dark room? 

One. 

Just one. It only takes the tiniest little bit of flame to totally transform the darkness. And it only takes the tiniest little bit of God's love to totally transform our lives. On our hardest days, in the face of our toughest trials, when the whole world seems to be falling apart, one microscopic little bit of God's love is enough to completely change everything. 

And, of course, God never deals in microscopic little bits of love. He can't. He is love. 

And His love is like a fire....