Our Blazing Fire Staff got away on a retreat the first weekend of January to lean our hearts together into the Lord’s sweet Spirit for anything he would want to communicate with us. One of the more tender and fun things we did was thanking God for all the ways he has blessed our Blazing Fire family throughout these many years. Maybe it’s just human nature, but we often have this tendency of focusing on what’s not going well or what needs to change—and some of that can be helpful—instead of celebrating what’s going right. So, we did just that and here are just a few of the many wonderful things expressed:
- We give room for God’s Spirit to move and space is made for personal encounter.
- The worship atmosphere is free with no expectations to act or perform a certain way.
- We are loved for who we are and not judged.
- We value and practice vulnerability and authenticity as an important aspect of our intimacy with the Trinity and in our relationships with each other.
- It’s safe to explore and ask questions, not feeling like we must have everything figured out in this lifetime journey with God.
- We enjoy a prophetic culture of encouragement as we build each other up and remind one another of our authentic identity in Christ.
- We choose loving connection over having to be right.
I could share many more, but I wanted to give you a taste of what all of you have been a part of creating and sustaining as we’ve learned to open our hearts more and more to the goodness of God and to Holy Spirit’s brilliant leading. Thank you, fam!
Through these remembrances of what’s going right, God was communicating his deep pleasure to us of how we’ve all been living out our vision together with his help:
Encounter God’s transforming presence
Enjoy Kingdom life as His family
Equip world changers!
I can see our Father’s beaming smile saying to us, “Well done!”
We also sensed his desire to help us even more intentionally this year to go and be Jesus to the ones who so need to experience his love and acceptance—the entire world full of people who are longing to belong, not knowing they’ve always been included in the Father’s tender heart. Jesus is the one—through his death and resurrection—who opened the way for all to come to our Father in a warm embrace and we have been commissioned to go as the face of Jesus to our family, our office, our school—literally anywhere we are—to love without judging. With his kindness and compassion that has it's source in Christ within, we get to take part in the heaven to earth transformation that continues to happen in the heart of each person we encounter.
Father and Jesus and Holy Spirit have been faithfully transforming us through encounters and by drawing us into their loving union and fellowship so we can know our authentic selves as they’ve created us and let our light within shine this year in a way that will surprise us!
What Jesus instructed his followers over two thousand years ago hasn’t changed:
“Go into the roads and search every nook and cranny,
find them behind every hedge and barrier and
compel them to come in and fill my house to the brim,
because the fields are ripe for harvest!”
(taken from Luke 14:23 & John 4:35) | 
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