Daily Bread – July 5, 2023 (The Fourth Day – Genesis 1:14-19) Genesis 15:17 – And it was as the sun was going down at dusk a smoke of a furnace of fire and a torch of fire which passed through these halved pieces. The first time God manifested Himself surrounded with fire was when He appeared to Abraham. God had come to Abraham to assure him he would have a son and would inherit the land that had been promised to him. God would not manifest Himself like this again until the time He brought Israel up out of the land of Egypt. Then, on Mount Sinai, God appeared once again in a very similar way, “And Mount Sinai was completely wrapped in smoke when the presence of Yahoah came down in fire, and the smoke ascended as the smoke of a furnace of fire, and the whole mountain greatly trembled” (Exodus 19:18). After this, God’s fire cloud of glory remained over the tabernacle and in the Holies of Holies for forty years. The cloud of God’s glory would not be seen again until Solomon had finished building the Temple. In an act of acceptance of what Solomon had built and in a display of His power, God came and manifested His glory again in the fire cloud (2 Chronicles 5:14, 7:1-3). The association of God’s fire cloud with the demonstration of His power and the acceptance of those things offered to Him is unmistakable. When God empowered the Church, He gave the Church His fire (Luke 3:16; Acts 2:2-4). We are to live in the midst of the fire as we walk out our relationship with God and present ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. We are commanded not to extinguish the fire by quenching the Spirit, Who has given us the fire (1 Thessalonians 5:19). The fire of God is far more than a purification agent. It is actually a manifestation of His power and glory that subdues all things to His nature. Even as the fire that burns across the great forests of the Earth and transforms the trees and the vegetation into a flame of fire and subduing all things, there is nothing that can withstand what Father has purposed to accomplish. When we yield our lives to Him, He comes with His Spirit and power and fills every dimension of our lives with His all consuming fire. There is no power of darkness, no devil of hell, no principality or power, no sickness or disease that has a chance when the fire of God is present. Blessings, Pastor Mark Spitsbergen