The Vision of the Burning Thornbush: the Excluding Flame Became the Indwelling Fire

Our enjoyment of Christ, our experience of life, and our growth in life is for the ministry of life. We need to experience Christ, enjoy Him, and grow in life, so that we may be qualified to minister life to others.

God’s economy is that we enjoy God as life, grow in life, experience Christ as life, and minister Christ as life into others.

In Eph. 3:2 we see that the economy of the mystery was revealed and entrusted “to me for you” – the life we enjoy and experience is to me for you! In the Bible we have a pattern of one who fully qualified to be a servant of God – Moses.

There are five aspects of being completely perfected to be a servant of God, as seen in the life of Moses:

1. We need to see the vision of the burning thorn bush;
2. We need to know who God is;
3. We need to see and know God’s purpose;
4. We need to see Satan, the flesh, and the world, and we need to deal with Satan, the flesh, and the world (death);
5. We need to experience the matching (Moses was matched with Aaron and the brothers) and the cutting (he experienced the cutting with Zippora).

Moses was the first complete, qualified, and perfected servant of God in history as recorded in the Bible. As such a one, Moses is the standard model of God’s servant, and God’s calling of him is the standard for His calling of all His servants (see Exo. 2:11-15; Acts 7:22-30, 34-36; Heb. 11:28).

Paul went through the same process, and so do we today. As called ones, God takes us through the process of seeing the vision of the burning thorn bush, knowing who God is, seeing and knowing God’s purpose, dealing with Satan and the world and the flesh, and experiencing the matching and the cutting.

Just as with Moses, the Lord needs to deal with us, perfect us, break us, and adjust us, so that He may make us useful servants to Him, those who minister life to the other members of the Body of Christ.

Seeing the Vision of the Burning Thornbush

Moses was educated in all the knowledge of Egypt, and he was a mighty man in the land. But God could not use his natural knowledge and skills – at 40 years old, the best Moses could do in his natural man was to kill an Egyptian and rather frighten the Jews than give them the idea that he’s their saviour.

When it comes to ministering life for the building up of the Body, we should not take “the way of the nations” and “the way of Christianity”. Just by being naturally talented or gifted does not make you a good servant of God. Rather, God wants to take us through a long process of transformation, breaking, adjusting, perfecting, and dealing, so that we may be produced as His servants qualified and equipped by God and fully constituted and filled with Christ.

The Lord wants to move, but He needs proper people who are qualified by Him and who cooperate with Him to give Him a way like never before.

After Moses passed through 40 years of seemingly doing nothing but tending to the sheep of his father-in-law in the wilderness, God appeared to him in the vision of the burning thornbush (Acts 7:22-36; Exo. 3:2).

A person who is called by God must see the vision of the burning thornbush. The thorns are a sign of man being under a curse (Gen. 3:17-18, 24). Sin brought in the curse, and the curse brought in the excluding flame of fire. When man sinned, he and the ground was cursed by God because of sin, and man was excluded and cut off from the Triune God in Christ as the tree of life by a burning flame of fire.

But in the vision of the burning thornbush, we see that the thornbush is burning without being consumed. The fuel for the fire is not humanity, the thornbush, but the fire itself!

We all need to see a vision of the burning thornbush, seeing that God wants to come into us as the divine fire and burn in us, yet He will not use our natural man to burn or do something for Him!

The Excluding Flame of Fire Becoming the Indwelling Fire

In Genesis 3 we see the thorns as the result of the curse and the fire as the separating flame of fire. In Exodus 3 we see that the cursed thornbush became the vessel of God, and the fire became one with the thornbush (Exo. 3:2-4).

The reality and explanation of this picture in Gen. 3 and Exo. 3 is in Gal. 3:13-14, where we see that, Christ has redeemed us out of the curse of the law, having become a curse on our behalf, in order that the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

Christ came in the flesh and He became a curse for us on the cross, thus taking the curse away, and He released the Spirit as the divine fire on the earth for us, the many thornbushes, to receive today! In Luke 12:49 the Lord Jesus yearned to cast the fire of the divine life on earth, and in Acts 2:3-4 we see that the outpoured economical Spirit was symbolized by tongues of fire.

Hallelujah, the excluding flame of fire has become the visiting fire and the indwelling fire burning in us as the thornbush! Through Christ’s redemption, the curse has been taken away, and the fire has become one with the thorn.

Everyone who is called of God needs to realize this: he is just a thornbush (a sinner under God’s curse) with a fire burning within him! This fire is the Triune God Himself in His holiness, the God of resurrection (Deut. 33:1, 16; Mark 12:26).

The Triune God is the fire in our spirit, and the Spirit is coming into us, mingling Himself with us, saturating us, and constituting us with God! The excluding flame of fire in Gen. 3 has become the indwelling fire of the Triune God dwelling in us, the cursed thornbush!

Now we need to fan into flame the gift of God which is within us, our spirit (2 Tim. 1:6-7). We need to be not slothful in zeal but burning in spirit, serving the Lord as a slave (Rom. 12:11).

There’s a fire within us – the divine fire of God, and we need to fan into flame our spirit so that the fire would burn and be released from us! This fire burns anything that’s natural in us, and it purifies the passageways of our spirit.

We simply need to OPEN to Him, exercise our spirit, and open every part of our inner being for the fire to be fanned into flame!

Lord Jesus, thank You for redeeming us from under the curse of the law. Through Your perfect redemption on the cross You were made a curse for us, and now we can receive the divine fire of God. Come in, flaming fire, and burn in us! We open our mind, emotion, and will, that Your spirit may saturate and spread into every part of our inner being! Praise the Lord, the fire is with our spirit! Praise the Lord, the fire is burning in us not using us as fuel! Keep us fanning our spirit into flame that You may burn in us and be released from us to help others catch the divine fire!

References and Further Reading

• This sharing is inspired from brother Dick Taylor’s speaking in this message and portions in, Life-Study of Exodus (msgs. 5 and 7), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, ITERO spring 2013 “The Experience, Growth, and Ministry of Life for the Body“, week 5 entitled, Being a Qualified Servant of God by Having the Complete Experience of a Called One.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # In the wilderness for God! / Just a common bush aflame! / Thus may I be, blessed Lord, / For the glory of Thy Name.
  # For which cause, I remind you / To fan into flame the gift of God / Which is in you / Through the laying on of my hands, / You fan into flame the gift of God, / Which is in you.
  # Lord, we wait on Thee, and with surety / Claim we now from Thee fire divine. / For Thy gospel’s sake, may we fire partake, / That the People’s heart Thou may refine.