Fire fighting
Day 352, Tuesday, July 29
Luke 12:49 – 14:35
“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! …. Do you think I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.”
This isn’t the first time Luke has likened the ministry of Jesus to fire.
When Luke recounts the baptism of Jesus, he says, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
How do we reconcile statements like these with the many other statements about Jesus being the Prince of Peace and bringing his peace to the world?
Perhaps the challenge is in understanding what peace is.
If we think of it as only the absence of conflict, there are various ways to achieve that—not all of them healthy. Simple lack of conflict can happen through intimidation or manipulation. Many of us have witnessed or even been in relationships that looks like they have no conflict only because one party is so dominant that the other never dares to disagree.
If you look to the verses before and after this one, you’ll see it comes in the context of talk of the end times and final judgment. In that time, God will reveal truth; those who have lived in light of that truth will find peace and those who have lived in contradiction to that truth will find the fire of judgment.
Fire can do different things: it can destroy and it can purify. We hope and pray that God will cleanse and purify us with his fire so that we do not have to endure the fire of eternal judgment.

-Rev. Mark Fleming

Tuesday meditation

Job 12:13-25
“To God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his. What he tears down cannot be rebuilt; those he imprisons cannot be released. If he holds back the waters, there is drought; if he lets them loose, they devastate the land. To him belong strength and insight; both deceived and deceiver are his.
He leads rulers away stripped and makes fools of judges. He takes off the shackles put on by kings and ties a loincloth around their waist. He leads priests away stripped and overthrows officials long established. He silences the lips of trusted advisers and takes away the discernment of elders. He pours contempt on nobles and disarms the mighty. He reveals the deep things of darkness and brings utter darkness into the light.
He makes nations great, and destroys them; he enlarges nations, and disperses them. He deprives the leaders of the earth of their reason; he makes them wander in a trackless waste. They grope in darkness with no light; he makes them stagger like drunkards.

Prayer focus
God, cleanse us with your purifying fire so that we may be holy before you.