Wind, Fire, Water, Earth, Heart

Ghostjunkie

Active Member
Sep 17, 2019
50
59
41
Tennessee
✟16,972.00
Country
United States
Faith
Pentecostal
Marital Status
Divorced
No, I am not summoning Captain Planet, but rather invoking the spirit of Christ--the spirit of the Father--the spirit of all life.

When you do a thorough reading of the symbolism in the bible, you find that perhaps 60% of the inspired word of God is naught but symbolism. After all, Jesus often spoke in parables for a good reason. If he were to speak literally of the trials and tribulations of the then current day, how well do you think his word would have endured? I'd wager not as well as it has.

The bible has lots to say on each of those topics, and I could direct you to dozens of verses, but as I do not want to turn this into a doctoral thesis, I will endeavor to keep it succinct. Let us begin with Wind.

Breath of God

What is it in Genesis that gives life to man? It is the breath of God. What was it on the day of Pentecost that preceded the Holy Spirit? (Acts 2:1-15) A sound like a great roaring wind. What was it that elevated Elijah into the heavens? (2 Kings 2:11) A great wind. What does God make his angels, according to Hebrews 1:7 ? You see, it all begins with wind.

Holy Fire

Moving on. Again, the word has much to say about fire. It warms, it inspires, it purifies and it destroys. God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:29, 2 Chronicles 7:1, 2 Kings 1:9-12) Fire tests and purifies. (Zechariah 13:9, Psalms 66:10, Malachi 3:2-3, Proverbs 17:3) Fire also is granted to his faithful as on the day of Pentecost and to his ministers. (Psalms 104:4, Acts 2:1-15)

Make it Rain

Now, on the subject of water, the bible has perhaps the most to say. Whether it is in great floods, frozen churches, or the water that flows from the Throne. It could take all day to cite these various passages, but for my purposes I would like to focus specifically on rain. As with fire, the rain in the bible is used both as a blessing and a curse. It once destroyed nearly all life (Genesis 7:4), it was withheld from the wicked (1 Kings 8:35), it was used to terrify sinners with the glory of God (1 Samuel 12:17-18) , and it was used to bless the land that it may bear fruits. (Leviticus 26:4) These are just a few of the many examples throughout.

Fruits and Harvests

If rain is to be a blessing on the land, then that blessing is for the bounty of harvest day. Again there is much said about fruits and harvests, so much in fact that an alien visitor might think our God a god of agriculture. Jesus often spoke of wheat (Mathew 13:36-43) and seeds. (Mathew 13:1-23) This is echoed in Revelations (Revelations 14:14-20), as well as various places in new testament and old. I cannot be bothered to rummage for all these citations, but suffice it to say that if you have been a Christian for more than a day you are likely familiar with at least a few of these.

Do Everything in Love

If someone were to ask you to sum up your faith in a single verse, which one would you chose? Most point to John 3:16. This is a good front door to Christianity, for sure, but does it really explain your faith to an outsider? Yes, Christ died for our sins, but what does that really mean to someone on the outside? For me, it would be 1 Corinthians 16:14. This too may be vague, but those four simple words encapsulate what it truly means to follow Christ. If it is too vague, I recommend you read through 1 Corinthians 13. To me, this is the heart of Christianity. Your salvation may require that you believe in and love Christ because of John 3:16, but for the actual daily "work" of your faith, simply remember to "Do everything in Love."

The Elemental Cycle of Faith

We begin with wind. If you look at the original Hebrew for spirit, ruach, we see that it means breath, wind, or spirit. It gave us life, it is the breath of God. The angels are made of it. It gives rise to the Holy Spirit. The very breath of God sends angels to fill us with the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:1-15)

Now, anyone who has ever tried to start a fire can tell you one thing. You cannot have fire without oxygen. If it can't breath, it can't burn. So, when making a fire what do we all do? We blow on it. As we have established above, God is a fiery, consuming God. He burns the wicked in His presence. He sits on a throne of fire. He has eyes like fire. He commands the burning pit. He consumes his enemies in fire. He grants tongues of fire. He makes ministers of fire. It is these last two that are important for this examination. A good preacher is one of fiery passion. One who has the holy spirit. That "Pentecostal fire" we say in the Church of God. If that inner fire comes from anywhere, it comes from the breath of God that gave it life. Wind leads to Fire.

Okay, so we're on fire. Now what? I turn you to James 3:5, "So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire." That Pentecostal fire we are granted by the ruach, gives us tongues of fire that we may burn down forests. I'm sure Smokey is concerned, but these are allegorical forests, so don't worry, bear. Within recent memory huge wildfires have destroyed great forests in California as well as large swaths of the South American Rain Forest. Can anyone in class tell me what large fires lead to? All that smoke and ash in the upper atmosphere create what are known as "condensation nuclei." Without these nuclei, moisture has nothing to cling to, and clouds do not form. Ergo, fire creates rain. This is the beauty of science and nature--which is all within the glory of God. As we established earlier, rain can be a blessing or a curse. In this example the rain helps to extinguish the very fire that created it; though, we all know that God's fire is eternal and cannot be quenched (Mathew 3:12). If this rain will not quench the fire, what then is its purpose? Simple. Water is the gift of life. Rain nurtures the very life that God created and helps it to bear its fruits.

Water has no bias. It has no will. It has no empathy nor has it enmity. It will nourish all according to its purpose, and it will erode according to its purpose. It is this perfection of being that causes God to carefully choose how and when the rain will fall, for not all fruits are born equal. Does not the tares that your enemy hath sown among your fields be nourished by the same rains? Does not the poisoned fruit grow in accordance to the same rains God-given? Branches will be cast away to wither and be burned (John 15:6), trees that do not bear good fruit will be felled and burned (Mathew 3:10-11) How can He be so careful and yet allow His waters to nourish foul fruits? The gift of life is freely given to all, for the grace of God can turn wicked to righteous, because Salvation is real, because he gave his only begotten son on that old rugged cross. It is not until the harvest that the tare is separated from the wheat, and in this way He will nourish all, wicked and holy alike.

And this brings us the the fifth element, which any Bruce Willis fan can tell you is love. He loves us all, sinner and saint alike. There may be scripture that says God hates sinners, and I could give you a counter argument based in scripture and linguistics that would shed light on this ostensible paradox, but I need not do that, for you only need to understand one thing. The Father and the Son are of one Spirit. Christ tells us to love our enemies. If not the sinner, who is the enemy of God? Ergo, God loves sinners as well as saints, he nurtures them all with the waters of life--but not eternal life. Eternal life will be reserved for the faithful, but as we established, the grace of God can make the vilest sinner clean, and there is no greater proof of His eternal love than that.

So, let's put it all together. The spirit (breath, wind) of God gives rise to the fire of ministry (the "Pentecostal fire"). The fire of ministry spreads; others catch fire. Great fires create clouds of rain. This rain nourishes all that it touches--wheat and tare alike. Love will take the tare to the flame, and the wheat into the barn. Those flames will give rise to more rain, fueled by more wind, which in turn will reap more harvests, on and on until the final harvest. It may fall heavy on the heart to think about the reality of it. It may be hard to feel the love that eventually condemns large portions to the pit. There is, as 1 Corinthians 13:13 puts it, three things that remain, and love may be the greatest, but do not discount hope and faith. The x-factor in all of this is "free will" or "personal responsibility." The miracle that breaks the cycle. For an actual tare cannot will itself to become a stalk of wheat, but through the saving grace of Christ our savior, we can.
 

Tolworth John

Well-Known Member
Supporter
Mar 10, 2017
8,278
4,679
68
Tolworth
✟369,529.00
Country
United Kingdom
Faith
Non-Denom
Marital Status
Married
rather invoking the spirit of Christ

Jesus is not a spirit to be invoked.

If you think that you have not understood just who and what he is or who and what his spirit is.
John1: Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

The creator of the whole universe, space, time, energy, matter. Is vaster than a tin pot spirit that can be invoked.
 
Upvote 0