“A fire shall always be burning on the altar; it shall never go out” (Lev 6:13). “Without ceasing I remember you in my prayers night and day” (2 Tim 1:3).
There is nothing which gives such an idea of vital energy as fire. This fire of Divine grace is kindled in the heart. It is the Divine life. It comes like light to the intellect, and illuminates it; it comes like heat to the heart and inflames it; it comes like strength to the will and energizes it; it comes with its consuming influence to the conscience and purifies it.
And so this Divine fire is that in which we live the Christian life. No determination of our natural will will enable us to live without it. And we cannot manufacture it; if we try to do so, like Nadab and Abihu, with strange fire, it is an unacceptable thing. The Christian life can be lived only in the energy of that Divine fire by the Spirit, that life of God communicated to every portion of the inner spirit, permeating it, influencing it, transfiguring it like a flame. —thoughts compiled from James Hastings