Sample Excerpts from God on Fire by Fred A. Hartley

The manifest present of God, however, is different. By its very definition, God’s manifest presence is impossible to miss. Unlike the omnipresence, God’s manifest presence is selective and highly personal. When Moses met God on fire in the burning bush, he was introduced to the manifest present of God. He had walked by that bush a dozen times. While the omnipresence of God had been there all along, Moses did not recognize God’s presence until God chose to make Himself conspicuously known.

The omnipresence and the manifest presence of God are both biblical and real, but there is a Grand Canyon difference between the two. A. W. Tozer was a forerunner in many ways. In his classic treaties The Pursuit of God he explains: “The presence and the manifestation of the presence are not the same. There can be one without the other. God is here when we are wholly unaware of it. He is manifest only when and as we are aware of His presence.” –p. 30

When it comes to knowing Christ and encountering His manifest presence, don’t dabble. Seek Him with reckless abandon. The world will never be changed by people who dabble. Don’t settle for a superficial, arm-distant relationship. Turn around. Christ is calling you all in. Dabbling is an insult to God. Jesus was not mangled on the cross nor did he rise from the dead so that we might dabble. Since God is on fire, how could we dabble? –p. 61

The reason God says do not be afraid to those who encounter the manifest presence of God is because it is only in His presence that our fears are fully exposed. Dealing with these fears appropriately, fully, decisively, is the key to moving forward with God. Fully embracing the fear of the Lord is the make-it-or-break-it issue of living in the manifest presence of Christ. Do not be afraid is the key to delighting in the fear of the Lord the way Jesus did (see Isa. 11:1). Do not be afraid are four good words designed to spoon off the surface of our lives the impurities that rise up from deep within as when the heat of God’s manifest presence comes to a boil. God does not put the fears inside us, but His penetrating, invading presence raises them to the surface, revealing what is already inside, so that we can overcome them. –p. 138

The New Testament is saturated with practical, tactile instruction on how to maintain and cultivate God’s tangible presence. As my graduate-school professor and mentor Richard Lovelace said, “Concentration on reformation without revival leads to skins without win; concentration on revival without reformation soon loses the wine for want of skins.” So what specifically characterizes the God on fire environment? 

God-encountering prayer and worship characterizes the God on fire environment. “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” Jesus demanded with His eyes blazing and the tendons in his neck as tight as piano wire (Mark 11:17). He then added the ominous words, “But you have made it a den of robbers.” Despite most misinterpretations, a den is not where robbers go to steal but rather where they go to hide after they have stolen. Essentially Jesus was saying, “My house is to be a place to meet God, and yet you have made it a place to hide from God.”

This means that whatever activity your church is involved in, no matter how good it is in itself, if it keeps your church from becoming a house of prayer or a meeting place for God and his people, it is an idol and requires demotion. People in your church family are hiding behind their activity rather than coming face to face with the manifest presence of Christ. –p. 173

Be a person of one thing, not a dabbler in many things. As good as you may be at music or sales or medicine or technology or leadership or finance or education or media or law, none of these are your first calling. You are called first to wholeheartedly know God, encounter God and worship Him for who He is. If you minor in the only ultimate major, you are only kidding yourself. It is the consummate defining moment in the life of every God seeker when he or she determines to be a first-seeker. Jesus called His followers to be first-seekers. “Seek first,” Jesus said, “[God’s] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:33). –p. 178