SHOW NOTES:

• When a believer begins to reach into sonship and wants to grow in his spirit, he begins to hear about the fire.

• The refining fire that the Holy Spirit brings on a believer who is seeking to move beyond the salvation experience at first may seem to be more on a soulish level than in a person's spirit.

• A relatively new Christian can begin moving in the gifts or speaking in tongues and become excited about areas he is moving in, but it may really be mostly the expression of the soul.

• John the Baptist emphasized that Jesus was coming to baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire, which was superior to the baptism that John had ministered.

• As the Lord begins to put the cross or the fire to a person's life, he feels very uncomfortable and may even try to back out of the pressure on his circumstances.

• There comes a point in a person's life where he realizes he has an Adamic nature that God is trying to refine out of him.

• I think one of the things we're looking at in the restoration, and salvation, and then the baptism of the Holy Spirit, is many people went off on a soulish realm to the degree that they thought the soulish realm was the anointing. And it was not.

• I don't think the understanding was there on what “the fire” meant.

• I don't think I ever realized we were born with chaff. I always felt like chaff came as a development as we grew up, and that's not true.

• A part of the old nature was called chaff, and the chaff had to be burned off. It couldn't remain if we were going to come into the presence of a holy God.

• You have to realize too that God doesn't technically put the fire on us. We are beaten, and that is how you get rid of the chaff. You're beaten, and then it is thrown in the air, and the wind takes it off. But then when it is done, to make sure the chaff is gone, they pick it up and burn it.

• God wants to perfect His people-- body, soul, and spirit. There are stages and times when God deals with us; we don't just stop at the initial experience of salvation.

• I think there's a carefulness, when you talk about the different levels of Christianity. We can become judges, and that is not good. We must let God be the judge, and that judgment can take you out of the game, because God will not allow you to be the judge.

• I think there is a calling for the ones that want to go on with the Lord and allow Him to burn off all the chaff, all of the soul-level stuff that we've lived with all of our lives.

Malachi 3:3 He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness.

I Corinthians 14:12 So also you, since you are zealous of spiritual gifts seek to abound for the edification of the church.

Matthew 3:11 “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Matthew 3:12 His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

Matthew 3:5-6 Jesus answered “Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.

Romans 12:1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

TAKE AWAY:

As a believer yields to the purging and purifying work of God, they are filled with His divine nature. Through this transformation, they are equipped with God’s love and the qualities needed to fulfill their foreordained purpose in His Kingdom. Across the world, remnants of believers are being prepared to take their place in the unfolding growth of God’s Kingdom.