SET OUR HEARTS ON FIRE

                  Chapter Two

 

God Has Something Better for You

 

My friend Al and I were out making calls on a Friday afternoon. We knocked on a door, and as we stood there waiting for it to open, a shiny Thunderbird pulled up to the curb.

 

"They're not home," said the driver, and then he added, "Whom do you represent?"

 

"Jesus," we answered.

 

He didn't laugh, nor did he drive off in disgust. He sat there stunned for a moment.

"Yeah? Tell me more."

 

It turned out that Arnold had once been a pastor and evangelist. But for the last thirty years he had refused to attend any church. His wife and two children were active believers, but Arnold had long since been defeated by the gap between expectation and reality.

 

Like most of us, Arnold yearned to experience God. In thirty years of isolation he had not lost his thirst, but he wanted more than talk. He was tired of hearing about God's wonderful promises. He wanted to see them made reality in his life and in the lives of others. Arnold was impatient with professing Christians who, in his view, had settled into a rut of mediocrity. He would rather stay away from church than go on torturing himself with those promises of life and power, while in fact his soul was dry and empty.

 

Arnold has a lot of company. We may still be going to church, praying, reading our Bibles and attempting to show compassion toward the people around us. But like Arnold, many of us are conscious of a gap between the high promises of God and what we are actually experiencing in our daily lives. Here's what many of us are experiencing:

 

We struggle with unbelief. We're like the preacher who expounds for twenty minutes on "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Mt 6:33, KJV) and spends the next half hour pitching for mon­ey. Our daily decisions betray a lack of trust in the simplest promises of God. "Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" (Mt 6:26). God promises to provide for us so that we can be relieved of our anxieties about tomorrow and pay attention to the call of the kingdom. But instead of leaving tomorrow in God's hands and going about the business of the day with childlike trust, we wor­ry and fret over things that are beyond our control.

 

We have little or no awareness of God's love. Jesus teaches us to pray "Our Father who art in heaven." He promises that our heavenly Father watches over every sparrow, knows the number of hairs on our head. Yet our awareness of that fatherly love is often weak. Hidden beneath our professions of faith are the questions: Does he really care about me? Does he understand what I'm going through? We know that the Spirit of the Son in our hearts should be crying, "Abba! Father!" (Gal 4:6), but for long seasons in our lives we feel like orphans.

 

We are afraid. The first time I met Carlos he was carrying a hefty stick. He came into the room, sat in a chair, laid his stick on the floor and started to talk. When the conversation was over, Carlos picked up his stick, shook hands and marched out the door, swinging a stick that had pounded every block of West Vernor Highway and knew every path running through Clark Park.

 

Carlos and his stick were inseparable. Somebody might be following him. An enemy might be waiting in the alley. One has to be prepared.

 

The stick we carry might be invisible, but it's there. Some­thing inside us is tense and on the alert for the big disappoint­ment, the sudden shock. If things are going badly, we wonder what's going to happen next. If they are going well, we're already bracing ourselves for the end of the winning streak. We carry our invisible stick for fear that tomorrow will not be safe. Inwardly we keep looking over our shoulders, because we know danger stalks us.

 

Our hearts are distracted. There are bills to be paid, TV pro­grams to watch, furniture to buy, repairs to be made on the car we know we should be able to take care of the business of life and still be focused on the kingdom. After all, Paul made tents for a living. Philip had a wife and four daughters. Lydia had a business to look after. They stayed centered on Jesus. Yet the distractions of life consume us, and God fades into the backg­round.

 

Jesus warned us about these thorns which will choke the growth of the good seed. The "cares and riches and pleasures of life" (Lk 8:14) he called them. He rebuked Martha for being "anxious and troubled about many things" (Lk 10:41) when only one thing is needful. But we find it almost impos­sible to follow Mary's example and sit still, listening to what Jesus has to tell us about our lives, about our future, about what he is willing to do for us, so that we can live a life that's centered on him. How can we walk the walk of faith when we're so distracted?

 

Our resolve to obey is weak. Jesus tells us that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. And yet, our spirits cannot make progress in the things of God unless the flesh comes along. Resolve means that I bring my body, mind and spirit together in an act of obedience. I decide to do this thing, and I do it. I will seek God's face. I will forgive my brother. I will speak the truth con­sistently, without embellishment or exaggeration. I will aban­don the unclean thought. What a disappointment to discover that my resolve is not nearly as strong as I thought it was. "For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do" (Rom 7:19, KJV). Many of us are trapped in a weak­ness of resolve that makes a mockery of our good intentions.

 

We are haunted by our ineffectiveness. "By this my Father is glo­rified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my dis­ciples" (Jn 15:8). Have we made a difference in anyone's life? Have we even imparted to our own children the rich treasures of the kingdom? We know that to follow Jesus involves more than getting saved and staying spiritually "sanitary." We need to bear fruit for the kingdom of God. What's missing? Why isn't this happening?

 

Why is our experience so far beneath God's call and God's promises? Has God forgotten us? By no means! Our heavenly Father is ready to lift us into something far better than this desert of mediocrity. If we cooperate with him and do things his way, he will quickly bring us to a place where the promises of Jesus are fulfilled in our daily lives.

 

In the following chapters I want to describe how God will do this. But first let's consider what this new life God gives us looks like. And remember, this new life is not something far off. It is near. It comes with the revival which has your name on it and can be your experience before you finish this book.

 

You Can Hear the Master's Voice

 

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand" (Jn 10:27-28). Be certain of this, you can hear Jesus speak to you. It may not be an audible voice or a vision, but you can know that the Lord is near and giving you clear direction for your life. He may speak through a word of Scripture or circumstances. He may guide you through a friend, or a sense of peace or restlessness in your heart. No means is beyond God. Sometimes he warns us; other times he encourages us in love or directs our attention to a need. As we learn to listen carefully for his voice in every arena our lives, we can learn to hear it and heed it.

 

In the old covenant only certain men and women were "seers" who had special relationships with God. It was their job to receive a word from God and pass it on to the people. But in the new covenant every follower of Jesus is given an ear to hear the Master's voice and wisdom to discern between that voice and every other.

 

You Can Experience Christ's Love

 

"I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you" (Jn 14:18). One time I picked up the phone and called a man whose wife and child had been killed in an accident. I had never met this man, but I felt somehow that I was to contact him and try to offer my condolences.

 

At the end of the conversation he said, "You really love Jesus, don't you?"

Of course, I answered, "Yes."

 

But after I had hung up, I scratched my head and asked myself, "Was that an honest answer? Do I love Jesus the way this man seems to think I do? Do I really have a sense of Jesus' love for me?" That phone conversation was like a prod from the Spirit of God.

 

It was unlikely I would ever love Jesus the way that man seemed to think I did until I had a clearer awareness of Jesus' love for me.

 

"We love, because he first loved us" (I Jn 4:19). But to know that "love of Christ which surpasses knowledge" (Eph 3:19)! How?

 

I began to realize that it comes as you thirst for it. When I discovered that the love of Christ was still a distant thing for me, that I needed desperately to know that love, the Spirit soon answered the cry of my heart. "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you" is a promise Jesus gives to every one of us --- a promise he keeps.

 

Through the Spirit Jesus expresses his love for you, a love that made him die for you, a love that longs to heal, restore and refresh you as you open your heart to it.

 

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.

Ephesians 3:14-19

 

Paul prayed that the Ephesians would experience that fresh­ness of the Spirit for which we thirst. It's there for the asking, when our hearts yearn for him.

 

You Can Walk in Christ's Peace

 

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid" (Jn 14:27).

 

When the risen Jesus stood among his disciples and said, "Peace be with you" (John 20:21), this was not just a greeting. Jesus was giving them a gift; Peace. His peace had the power to calm a raging storm on Galilee. And it has the power to restore our hearts.

 

We have all met Christians who have this peace. They walk into a room where people are shouting accusations at each other, and the atmosphere begins to change. Mom comes home with a smile on her face, and the children forget why they were fighting. Her peace stills troubled waters. And when that peace is the peace of God, she brings some of heaven into her home.

 

You can have a supernatural calm in every situation. Things may be falling apart in your circumstances. Maybe your boss is blaming you for his own mistakes. Or the stock market has taken a dive and the whole world is in a state of shock. Or another round of "downsizing" is about to begin. Or your best friend has taken offense at something you said at lunch last week. Yet deep within you still have peace, because this peace does not depend on anything that happens in this world. It comes from the Lord of Lords. And it holds you in its comfort­ing grip, keeping you calm though the storms rage around you.

 

You Can Serve the Lord

 

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father" (Jn 14:12).

 

Jesus told the disciples to stay in Jerusalem until they were "clothed with power from on high" (Lk 24:49). How could they possibly preach the gospel, heal the sick, cast out demons and make disciples of all nations without the power of the Spirit of God? They waited in Jerusalem, the power came and they went out and got the job done. What God gave to them, he will also give to you. You can be clothed in power from on high so that you can accomplish everything Jesus sends you to do.

 

You will not need to seek out opportunities to employ this power from on high. They will come to you in the form of people with wounded souls and troubled hearts and broken bodies. You will have the joy of seeing the life of heaven flow through you to others around you. By this power you will bring good news to the poor, deliverance to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom for the oppressed and hope to the downcast. In your revived life the gap between expectation and reality will begin to close.

 

Believe that God has something far better than the desert of mediocrity in which so many of us have been wandering. Believe that the time has come for the promises of Jesus to be fully realized in your daily life.

 

 

 LORD, SET MY HEART ON FIRE!

 

  

From "Set Our Hearts On Fire"  published by Servant Publications 1998  

 

 

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