Take a second and think about what a wildfire actually looks like. I don't mean a precious little campfire in the middle of scenic campgrounds encircled by smores and happiness. I mean the dangerous kind...maybe even fatal. I was reading in Luke 13 this morning when I came across Jesus' description of the kingdom of God.
18 Then Jesus asked, “What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? 19 It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds perched in its branches.”
20 Again he asked, “What shall I compare the kingdom of God to? 21 It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds[a] of flour until it worked all through the dough.”
Jesus compares the kingdom to a mustard seed, saying it will grow to become a tree. An impossibly small (1-2mm in diameter) seed growing into a tree. Okay, now think about the second comparison: yeast being mixed into 60 pounds of flour until it all eventually becomes dough. I want to point out the fact that yeast is what makes the bread rise (if you didn't know that already). One bushel of wheat yields 60 pounds of flour. ONE bushel. 60 pounds of flour yields about 90 loaves of whole-wheat bread (that's enough to feed about 1080 people). Think about the magnitude of this. All this from a tiny start. When I was trying to comprehend these similes, a thought kept crossing my mind. A wildfire.
The kingdom of God is like a wildfire.
I asked you earlier to picture what you thought a wildfire looked like. Bring back that image. A dangerous, consuming, overbearing, uncontainable fire. The brush and trees don't have anyway to escape. They can't help but be transformed into something completely different at the mercy of this raging fire. What about the fire? Does it have anyway of holding back? What would this look like if this was God's kingdom, if every single person were consumed by the fire? The kingdom couldn't help but be transformed by this infectious desire for our Lover. The fire couldn't contain the Holy Spirit that ignited it in the first place. This is what I want. I want to be the spark that starts the infection. I challenge you to pray this over your community--that you can be the fire spreading, transforming the kingdom of God.
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