A beautiful “firewheel” flower that was growing in the city of Ghent, whilst around it there were masses of people and all the rubbish that came with that. This flower was doing its best to shine in the beauty it was given. I had to stop to take a picture of it, it radiated beauty, beauty given by the Lord.

Fire is a sign of God’s presence in the bible;

God appears to Moses in a bush that is on fire(Exodus 3:2), God appears in the fire when Nebuchadnezzar tried to burn some followers of God(Daniel 3:8-30)
God appears to settle on the disciples like flames of fire and tongues. Acts 2:1-15

If we truly believe we have been infused with the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit, then what are we doing to use this power. The Holy Spirit is described as like fire when He came to the disciples in acts. Acts 2:1-15

How is the presence of God being shown in our lives?

Would any stranger meeting you for the first time know that you have a strong and unwavering faith?

These flowers are designed to show colours and each seems unique, but each is showing its colour that it was designed for. Perhaps the purpose of these flowers is nothing more than to create beauty, but they do have a purpose, even if we can’t immediately discover it with our wisdom. In the story of Daniel the three followers of God would have been frightened to their wits end and wouldn’t have thought there could have been any purpose to having them burned alive, but God turned it around to turn even the king Nebuchadnezzar to do his will.

Notice in the story of the burning bush, Moses was attracted and fascinated by the flames, by the beauty. Fire has a beauty, as when I have sat by a fire and gazed into the flames it has relaxed me, allowed me to think, reflect. Just like Moses was attracted by the burning bush, I was attracted by the colours of the flower.

But as we start at the centre of the flower, the deep red and then travel out we see a yellow colour. Perhaps it represents that the fire of God will consume our sin until there is nothing left but the glory of God, the yellow leaves are the glory of God.

Another point about the the burning bush is that it seems to me that the fire didn’t destroy the bush. God doesn’t want to destroy us, he wants to change us into his perfect creation through the refining process using his holy fire – the Holy Spirit.

I pray tonight that the Holy Spirit comes down and shows His power on the this earth amongst our daily life so that we can indeed bring others to God, but also that we hear the challenge to come out of our protection.

Through Jesus Christ

Amen