Divine Consumerism
"The zeal for Your house will consume me" John 2:17 In this age of Wal-mart, we all know what it means to consume. We know that the reason Wal-mart exists is because when we buy things, we use them. When we use things, we lose them. When we lose things, we need more things! And we know that when something is consumed, it is used up, and is no longer useful. Isn't that the point of consuming? But what if something could be consumed, and yet retain its properties? What if something could be assimi-lated and yet retain autonomy? When God consumes something, it continues to be useful after consumption! In John 4:13-14 Jesus talks about consuming living water and never thirsting again; in Exodus 3:2, fire engulfs the bush, and yet the bush doesn't burn up; and in Acts 2, the Spirit of God envelopes the disci-ples and they become more useful than ever. But why does it matter? How does this effect us? Simply this, the Spirit of God wants to consume us. God is never satisfie