Because that’s what we see on Mt.Carmel. God desperately wanted people to know Him. He wanted to end idol worship. He wanted to be done away with the false gods, who are really no gods at all. He wanted allegiance from the people, because He alone is worthy of love and loyalty. The second time in the Bible He is called a consuming fire, He is also called a jealous God. That is, He wants our 100%. No wavering. No hopping from one foot to the other. He wants our all. He wants to eliminate the double-mindedness. He wants to get rid of the counterfeit.
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Which is an interesting thought. Watch this. The stage is set for a showdown between the fake and the real. There were the counterfeit religious people, praying counterfeit prayers, pouring out their lives in counterfeit sacrifices to a counterfeit god, a god who wasn’t even there.
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Then one man stood up for the truth. He offered real prayers to a real God. Then God’s fire fell. God chose that moment to reveal how real He is, how pure and holy He is, how passionate He is. God’s fire separated the real from the fake. God’s presence split the wheat from the chaff, the meat from the bones, the dross from the silver. The fire of God, His passion for us to be right with Him, showed up that day and people came back to him.
For that really is what God wants. He is passionate about knowing us, and us knowing Him. That’s what he wants. He wants our loyalty, which is what He demanded that day on Mt.Carmel. He accepted the challenge because He would go to great lengths to reach out to us. He wants our loyalty.
But He also wants our purity. He wants us to be pure and holy. He wants us to be free of sin. He wants our hearts to be 100% His. Now, though 100% performance isn’t possible here – we will accidentally mess things up sometimes. But the Bible promises we can have a new and clean heart. And that’s where the fire of God comes into play again. I think of Malachi 3:2-4 – “But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.”
This pictures God as a refiner, one who would take the silver and plunge it into the fire to melt off anything un-silver-like in it. You see? God works with a passion to purify us, to clean us, to sanctify us, to make us like Himself. Now, His cleansing on us isn’t always pleasant. V2 does ask: “Who can stand it?” God’s refining fires on our lives isn’t always fun or easy. We certainly go through hard times, but God wants to use them to make us like Him. This is His burning passion. Romans 8:29 says: “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son…” Get it? God wants to transform us into the image of His Son. He wants us to be just like Jesus.