Day #275 - Strange Fire

The Presence - A Devotional for Living in Thanksgiving, Worship and Wonder

“Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, contrary to his command. So fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Moses then said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord spoke of when he said: “ ‘Among those who approach me I will be proved holy; in the sight of all the people I will be honored.’ ” Aaron remained silent.”

‭‭Leviticus‬ ‭10‬:‭1‬-‭3‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Photo by Paul Schafer on Unsplash

Have you ever been around fire with someone that you don’t trust?

Growing up we lived in what might seem like a pretty typical American middle class suburb type of neighborhood. We played outside a lot growing up. We rode bikes, played basketball, played baseball, played hide and seek and went on adventures in the woods. We had some neighbor friends that we had a lot of fun with but we also had some neighbors that got kind of wild. The neighbors who got wild had some pretty crazy parties that were even broken up by police. At one of these parties a neighbor got so drunk during the Fourth of July and started launching large illegal fireworks down the street with a slingshot. One of the other neighbors was standing nearby and got knocked off their feet by the explosion. An altercation almost began. What am I trying to say? Fire in the hands of the wrong person is dangerous.

A lot of times fire in the Bible was a holy and precious thing. The fire in the tabernacle on the altar and on the lampstand was a beautiful and holy thing. But God had a prescribed way that His people and His priests were supposed to approach Him. Leviticus has many instructions about the sacrifices and the tabernacle. But in Leviticus 10, Aaron’s sons brought strange or unauthorized fire before the Lord and a greater fire came from “the Presence” and killed them.

I love “the Presence” but we must not become flippant or casual with God in how we approach Him. In the New Testament awakening and outpouring in the book of Acts, Ananias and Sapphira also were slain for lying to the Holy Spirit. Its not common that people are killed in judgement by the Lord, but there is something about His holy presence that increases the stakes of how we respond the Lord.

People have different interpretations of what strange or unauthorized fire is before the Lord for our modern day applications. We can see the root cause of the sons of Aaron being slain was that the fire they offered was contrary to His command. In other words, they went before the Lord in direct disobedience to what He prescribed. God calls us to be holy and He has taught us that we can only come to Him through the finished work of Jesus by the Holy Spirit.

May we fear the Lord and be obedient to Him so that we don’t offer strange fire but holy fire.

Lord Jesus, You are holy. Forgive me for any way that I have become causal or flippant in Your presence. I repent for any areas of disobedience. Cleanse me. I want no part of strange or false fire. I want the true presence of Your Spirit and I want the holy flame of Your love. Purify me and ignite me with Your fire. In Your name, amen.