SET OUR HEARTS ON FIRE

 

            Chapter Four

 

The Spirit Takes Control

 

What happens when God sets fire to our hearts? John Wesley described how his heart was "strangely warmed." Dwight Moody looked back on an overwhelming experience of God's love that was so sacred to him he kept it a secret for fourteen years. The new disciples in Ephesus "spoke with tongues and prophesied" (Acts 19:6). But beneath whatever outward signs of divine fire in a person's life, the inner mir­acle is always the same: an invisible Person takes up residence within. "He dwells with you, and will be in you," Jesus promised, describing how the Holy Spirit would soon be the disciples' constant Counselor (Jn 14:17, emphasis added). He would direct them, no longer from outside, but from within.

 

Each of the four Gospels contains the same promise: "John answered them all, 'I baptize you with water; but he who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire'" (Lk 3:16).

 

Jesus' coming into this world, his ministry, his death, his res­urrection ... all were aimed at accomplishing this one miracle: to make it possible for human beings once more to be inhabited by the Spirit of God, as none had since the fall of Adam. For centuries the Spirit was active in this world, particularly among the people of Israel. He guided Moses. He spoke through the prophets. Yet, because of sin, the Spirit could not dwell in their hearts.

 

Then the Son of God emerged from his baptism to begin his ministry as the Son of Man, and the Spirit of God came upon him in fullness and to stay. Jesus proceeded to pioneer the way so that we could walk in his steps. By his death on the cross, he removed the curse of sin and made it possible for us to walk in righteousness by the power of the same Spirit which came to him. He wants us to carry within us the same power of God that anointed his lips and flowed through his hands.

 

In fact, Jesus made it clear that there is no other way. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. It cannot see or enter the kingdom of God. We have to receive a "new heredity," as Oswald Chambers called it. We have to have the nature of God himself placed within us so that the life of the Father and the mind of the Son literally begin to replace our old heredity of flesh and blood: "But to all who received him [Jesus], who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God" (Jn 1:12-13, emphasis added).

 

The coming of the power of God is a supernatural event, which produces a supernatural change at the center of our beings. When the Holy Spirit takes up residence within us, we receive our new natures; we are adopted into God's family; and we inherit his character as his sons and daughters.

 

Our New Heredity

 

The shape of your face, the color of your eyes and the sound of your voice are manifestations of your family's hereditary line, which stretches back through generations and disappears out of sight.

 

But there is one characteristic we all have in common. We have inherited a predisposition to think and behave as if we were each the center of the universe. We have inherited a fallen and sinful nature. To think of ourselves first comes naturally. People around us become significant to the extent that they bring us joy or pain.

 

It isn't much fun being chained to ourselves. How often we wish we weren't so self-conscious. What a wonderful thing to be able to go through the day without constantly worrying about what's going to happen to us. Is that pain in my stomach gas or is there something growing in there? Why did Nancy duck down the other aisle as soon as she spotted me at the gro­cery store? Will I still have this job next year, or will there be another buyout? We can't help being fixated on ourselves. It's our heredity. Even when we turn over a new leaf and resolve that we're going to "live for others," we end up either as hyp­ocrites or as nervous wrecks. We just can't break out of this mold of self- preoccupation ... until the Spirit comes.

 

And the Spirit does come. You've prayed for this miracle. You've prepared the way for it. And now he comes. The proof that his coming is happening is not that you are having a vision or that you have been struck down by blinding light or that you suddenly feel moved to open your mouth and prophesy. Praise God if you are experiencing such things. But the proof that the miracle is taking place is that you find yourself able, for the first time in your life, to actually obey Jesus. You couldn't before. But now you can. Another will has come alongside your weak will, setting it free to be able to joyfully obey the Master.

 

It's not your nature; it's Christ's nature living in you, and you find yourself able to do what you could never do before. Like a child growing into the likeness of his or her parents, you are now growing into the likeness of your heavenly Father, as the Lord Jesus helps you from within by the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. ROMANS 8:3-4

 

This new heredity enables us to love God and to love people as we never could before. It is not a matter of resolving to "live for others." Our resolve (inspired by the Spirit) is to please the Father. As we fix our hearts on him, the Father enables us to live out of our new heredity. By the power of the Spirit we begin to change into the likeness of our Lord who came, not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

 

Christ Jesus Is Formed in Us

 

Now the Spirit begins the work of sanctification ... forming us into the likeness of Christ. This wonderful change does not hap­pen in an instant. It is a process that requires our cooperation all along the way. As we yield to the Spirit's leadings and submit to his word of correction, our character begins to take on a striking resemblance to that of our Master. The love that has

begun to burn in our hearts is not our love, it is Christ's love, imparted to us by the Holy Spirit.

 

We are visited by a peace that passes understanding, a peace we did not inherit from our earthly parents; it belongs to our new heredity. The peace of Christ, now dwelling in us, is settling storms that have raged within our souls since childhood

 

We find ourselves able to take hold of the Word of God with a faith that is new to us. It is the same kind of faith Jesus had when he calmed the Sea of Galilee and fed five thousand with five loaves and two fish. Now this faith lives in us, helping us to trust God as we were never able to before. We begin to experi­ence a joy that is totally free of the circumstances around us. This joy is there in good weather and bad, when our stomachs are full and when they are empty.

 

As our minds are being renewed in the mind of Christ, "who emptied himself; taking the form of a servant" (Phil 2:7), we are set free to live without being distracted by the needs of our egos. We are doing what we're doing for Jesus, and not for the eyes of our neighbors and friends and critics. If someone else gets the "credit" for bringing Jack to church after we did the praying, calling and serving that prepared the way, may God's name be praised. We did it for the Master, not for some "audience." The Spirit is teaching us to serve God and not to let our left hand know what our right hand is doing. If the widow across the street never bothers to say thank you when we mow her lawn in the heat of the summer, we did it in Jesus' name. No thanks needed. With the mind of Christ, we seek to please the Father rather than to earn recognition from our friends and neighbors.

 

                         We Are Empowered to Walk in His Will

 

"If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Sprit which dwells in you" (Rom 8:11). It's like a resurrection. We rise from a death state, in which we just could not obey God's commands, into a life state where we can. Our mortal bodies are released into the freedom and power of the Spirit.

 

I don't know if my friend Mike would have described him­self as a driven Christian, but he was certainly driven by a desire to help people. And many a person was helped by him. Yet the more he listened to the words of Jesus, the more troubled he became. Mike was honest enough to admit to himself that he did not have it in him to love his neighbor the way Jesus required it. And Jesus' insistence that his followers be recon­ciled with their brothers convicted him, when he considered all the loose ends in his own relationships that needed attention.

 

Then came hope. The promise that the Spirit would make it possible. Mike took hold of that promise with faith.

 

The old Mike died. The new Mike who rose out of his grave was washed in the blood and empowered by the Spirit. It was no longer Mike, but Christ. The commands of Jesus, which before had discouraged and disheartened him, became paths to fullness of life.

 

"It's amazing!" Mike would say. "I can do it now! Well, not I, but Jesus in me. It really works!"

The proof of whether the fire of God has reached our hearts is not that we saw a vision or spoke in tongues or prophesied, but rather that we are now able to do the impossible things Jesus commands us to do.

 

Working Out What the Spirit Works In

 

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil 2:12-13). As he did with Mike, God puts the fire into us. And now comes the joyful task of "working it out," letting the Spirit manifest himself through practical changes in our living. We have a new heredity. Christ is being formed in us. We have been given power. And that power has now enabled us to make certain changes in our lives. The Spirit gives us all the help we need as we begin to develop transformed attitudes, renewed relationships, sanctified work and inspired disciplines.

 

Transformed Attitudes

 

Over the years we have developed attitudes toward others and toward life itself which belong to our old heredity. These do not automatically disappear when the Spirit enters our lives, as we quickly discover the first time someone offends us and that old venom spills from our mouths. Attitudes change only as we change them. The Spirit gives us the power to do this, but we have to make it happen.

 

Perhaps you are habitually irritated by people who like to drive slowly on winding, two-lane roads. Don't they ever look in their rearview mirrors? Can't they see that they have ten cars bottled up behind them?

 

But now you have a new passenger in your car, living within your own body. The Sprit in you calls for patience. Why are you working yourself into such a state over that driver's failure to accommodate you?

 

Here is a perfect opportunity to begin a change of attitude. As you ease up and fit in with the flow, the Spirit causes you to see how many other moments of your day are polluted with attitudes of anger, impatience and criticism. He helps you see how impatient you are with people who don't answer their phones in time, people who eat too slowly, think too slowly, walk too slowly. Ease up, says the Spirit. You are not the center of the universe, God is. Jesus loves these irritating people and died for them. Fit in with his program, and you won't be so obsessed with trying to make the universe fit into yours.

 

Maybe you're a habitual pessimist. Or perhaps puddles of bigotry have collected in the cellar of your soul. Many of us are just the slightest bit paranoid. We approach life with an attitude of enlightened suspicion. Everybody around us is guilty until proven innocent. Some of us are "Christian whiners," living in a chronic state of pious lamentation. The Spirit of God helps us to recognize that these attitudes exist in us and gives us the power to change them.

 

Usually when the Spirit makes us aware of an attitude that needs to change, we deny it. How could you ever think that I wallow in self-pity? Please! But after being convicted a few times, we begin to get a glimpse of what the Spirit sees as he looks into our souls. And we know that if the miracle of revival is to proceed in us, we will have to take steps to change. What a joy to know that we are no longer imprisoned in this attitude! We can break free. We can replace it with an attitude that comes with our new heredity.

 

Renewed Relationships

 

Say your wife just let you know that she isn't happy about your inviting two couples over for dinner without consulting her. Now you're in the backyard having a little sulk, thinking of all the reasons why you shouldn't have married her in the first place, how you have put so much more into the relationship than she has. Why can't she be more hospitable? Of course, you don't know the first thing about preparing a meal, but it can't be that much work!

 

Out of nowhere two words come crashing into your con­sciousness. They are spoken softly, yet with an authority that frightens you. You've never heard the Holy Spirit speak directly to you before, but what else could it be? "Love her" is the gentle command. Nothing more. Suddenly you know that she its not in the wrong you are. By inviting these guests without even considering her, when much work will be required on her part, you have demeaned your wife.

 

The Spirit is revealing to you, in this moment of self-pity, that your relationship with your wife is still part of your old heredity. It needs to be renewed. And it will be renewed, if you will obey his one command: Love her. You have been busy try­ing to make this woman fit into your program, but that is not your job. Your job is to love her. Love her just the way she is. Love her the way Christ loves his church. Fit in with her in Jesus' name, instead of forever expecting her to fit in with you.

 

When we committed ourselves to be disciples of Jesus, we understood that he was to come first in our lives, ahead of hus­band, wife, parents or children. "He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me," says Jesus (Mt 10:37).

 

But commitment to Jesus is never license to take our spouses or our children or our parents for granted. While Jesus is to come first, ahead of every other affection, our rela­tionship with others, especially those close to us, is to be oiled by the Spirit of love. Our spouses cannot be disregarded as we pursue the "interests of the kingdom." We each have a special kingdom responsibility for the person whose life we share. The Spirit of God has come to help us to bring all our relationships into the fresh new life which his love imparts, as we allow that love to flow through us.

 

 

 

 

Sanctified Work

 

"Man, I hate this job! I'd leave it in a minute, if I didn't have a family to support." With shrinking benefits, disappearing job security, the constant pressure to produce the most in the least amount of time, many men and women are at their wits end in the workplace. They have to survive, but they wish there were some way to earn a living without draining their souls in this accelerating rat race.

 

The Spirit of God may not change your circumstances in the workplace, but he will certainly change you as he revives your spirit.

 

Work. We're stuck with it. Whether we're running house­holds or driving semis over the interstate, cleaning teeth or designing software, most of us are tied down to a life of work.

 

We have often lived as though our work lives were some­thing separate and apart from the kingdom of God. As if faith in Jesus is to be practiced in our off hours – when we go to church, when we shut the door behind us and pray, when we visit the sick and shut-ins. Yet our work, which consumes so much of our time and energy, is of major interest to the Spirit of God. The Spirit within us does not go to sleep while we go to work. He goes to work with us. He takes an interest in what we're doing and how we're doing it. He helps us in our rela­tionships with the people around us. He is there to bring the kingdom of God into the workplace through us.

 

We bring the kingdom of God into the workplace by putting in a good day's work. The young man who was caught reading his Bible behind a pile of pallets on company time did not impress the foreman, when he explained that he was "having devotions."

 

"I was witnessing until past midnight last night and was late getting up," explained the pious one.

"Stick that Bible back in your pocket and get to work," answered the foreman, "and if I catch you doing that again you're out of here!"

 

But we do more than put in a good day's work. We are an extension of the body of Christ in that office, factory, home, school, hospital or loading dock. Since we have been revived, we work with bodies that have become temples of the Holy Spirit. The life of God flows through us. People are encour­aged, healed, given hope by our very presence in that place.

 

It is not an accident that we are working in the place where we are. We have been sent to this place by the Master himself (unless we're printing counterfeit money or refining heroin, in which case the minute the Spirit of the Lord gets hold of us, we know it is time to switch careers), and he commands us to let our light shine. All we need to do is practice his presence, and those long, monotonous hours of work will be sanctified. God will use them for his purpose. The flame of revival will burn even there.

 

Inspired Disciplines

 

To stay fresh over the long haul, there are certain habits the Spirit of God will help us to practice. These habits or disciplines were present in the life of our Lord, when he lived on earth. No follower of Jesus can survive without them. Our personal revival is only complete as it results in the formation of these disciplines: prayer, a lively use of the Bible, participation in the life of the body of Christ, faithful handling of money, a life of service.

 

Prayer  At the beginning of your personal revival, prayer is usu­ally the easiest thing in the world to do. Prayer just comes bub­bling up from within. You love to pray. Your time alone with God is the most refreshing hour of the day. But be forewarned: your honeymoon with prayer will be followed by a season when you will wonder whether the spring has dried up. What went wrong? Did I take a forbidden turn? Why has the luster gone out of prayer? Why has prayer, which was once such a joy, become so difficult?

 

Nothing went wrong. Your Red Sea celebration is over, and now it's time to plunge into the wilderness, where you learn to pray even when prayer is difficult. In chapter eight we will examine how prayer is essential to sustain revival in our personal lives and to spread revival beyond ourselves. But for prayer to have the place in our lives that the Lord Jesus com­mands it to have, it must become a discipline – a thing we make ourselves do on a daily basis, whether we're in the mood for it or not.

 

The Spirit helps us to pray and guides us in our prayers (see Rom 5:26), but we have to do the praying. My friend Glen always says that you can only steer a bicycle when it's moving. The Spirit of God can only steer our prayers when we're pray­ing. The Spirit's job is to flood our prayers with the life of God, to intercede for us with "sighs too deep for words" (Rom 8:26). Our job is to keep praying day after day, in season and out of season, so that the Spirit can do his job.

 

A lively use of the Bible. The Bible is our "handbook of revival." As we will see in chapter five, the Bible, which has played a piv­otal role in every revival, is preserved for us by God, to help us stay fresh and on track. But this record of God's words and actions can only help us if our use of it is lively and regular. By lively I mean that we do more than cover so many chapters a day. We think. We listen. We pay attention. We ask the Spirit to show us what we need to see as we read it.

 

And our use of the Bible needs to be disciplined. The Bible is not God, but it is the place where we meet God. The Bible is not Jesus, but it is the place where the crucified and risen Lord Jesus comes to meet us and speak to us. The Bible now speaks to us in a way it could not speak before we were indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Now the Spirit, who inspired Moses and the prophets and burned white-hot in the ministry of our Lord, confirms to our hearts the things we read. But we have to read. We have to discipline ourselves to come to this book daily with alert minds and listen to what it has to tell us.

 

Participation in the body of Christ. There is a difference between casual participation in the body of Christ and disci­plined participation. Casual participation means that I go when I feel like it, making sure that church doesn't interfere with my personal life. Disciplined participation means that I commit myself to serving Jesus in the context of this particular body of believers. I will worship with them every week, except when I'm sick or out of town. (If I'm out of town, I'll find a body of believers somewhere and worship with them.) I will get to know these people. I will open my life to them. I will serve them.

 

For most of us, disciplined participation in the body of Christ includes being part of a small group within the larger fellowship. It could be a Bible study that meets in the church or in someone's home each week. Or a prayer group. Or a combination of the two. If there is no small group, you may find yourself helping to gather one, with the approval and guidance of the church's leadership. The revival that is working in your life is also at work in the lives of others. You will find these people, and they will find you. Together you will commit yourselves to serving that church with a spirit of strong encouragement.

 

Faithful handling of money.  To his disciples, Jesus said: "He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will entrust to you the true riches?" (Lk 16:10-11).

 

Often we have thought that we were handling money, when in fact money was handling us. We worried about it, lost sleep trying to figure out how to increase our hoard of it. Or we dreamed about how nice it would be if we had a hoard of it. Mammon became our master. Jesus has made clear that if we allow mammon to be our master, it will be impossible for us to serve God. And now that the Spirit has entered our lives with power, one of his primary goals is to set us free from our bondage to mammon. He comes to teach us to truly seek first the kingdom of God and to trust that the heavenly Father will indeed provide for us.

 

Jesus never said that money was unimportant. We never hear Jesus say, "Money means nothing to me." Jesus teaches that money, the "unrighteous mammon," is actually the trial material by which we prove that we are capable of handling the riches of the kingdom. Until we are able to handle money faithfully for God, we are not ready to be entrusted with the powerful riches of God's Spirit. The Spirit will help us to be faithful to God in our handling of money as we engage in disciplined giving, dis­ciplined generosity, and disciplined management.

 

"Disciplined giving" means that we prayerfully decide on a percentage of our income that we are going to slice off the top of every paycheck and put into "God's bin." It's all very well to say that all our money belongs to God, but we will continue to use it as though it belonged to us until we take a meaningful portion and give it away as an offering to God. The money that we put into "God's bin" may be passed on to our church, and perhaps to a missionary, or to an organization that feeds the hungry or cares for children. The Spirit will help us decide where, beyond our local church, some of this money should go. We give, not because the church needs money, but because we need to give as an act of continuous thanksgiving and praise to God.

 

"Disciplined generosity" means that, over and above our tithe (whether it's ten percent or more or less), we train our­selves to be aware of needs that require our help. "Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you," said Jesus to men who were already tithing their income (Mt 5:42).

 

We hear of a flood in Colorado or a famine in Korea or thousands of families displaced by a localized war in Africa, and we hear the Spirit saying, "You can help." So we send a check to the agency of our choice.

 

Often the needs are close to home. A neighbor has been laid off for the third time in two years. His family needs help. We train ourselves to manifest to this man and to his family, with our money, the same kind of generosity the Lord God has shown to us.

 

But aren't there times when we really need to say no? As my friend Haskell always says, "Don't worry about learning how to say no, until you've first learned how to say yes." Generosity is not part of our old nature. It comes with our new heredity, but we only learn it through practice, through discipline.

 

"Disciplined management" means that we train ourselves to manage our financial affairs as stewards of the kingdom rather than people who answer only to themselves. We buy and sell and save and spend, remembering that we are making these decisions under God.

 

One time our friend Lucille came into a large sum of money. When she spoke with Jean and me about it, she sounded as though she wished this burden had not been dumped on her. "What should I do with it?" she asked, almost hoping that someone would tell her to sign it over to some worthy cause.

 

"The Lord put it into your hands because he knows he can trust you, Lucille. He'll show you how to handle it. Meanwhile leave it where it is and keep living for him."

 

In the years that followed Lucille managed that money like a steward of heaven. She was generous but not gullible. She used it as she used her very life: to serve God by quietly helping people.

We may not have as large a "problem" dumped on us as Lucille had, but we are equally responsible before God to man­age what comes into our hands in a way that pleases God.

 

A life of service. Martin Luther once said, "Love God, and do as you please," meaning that if we truly love God, we will be driven by a desire to please him. What higher pleasure can there be than to please the one we love?

 

Yet old habits have developed such deep grooves in our behavior patterns that, without discipline, we find ourselves constantly sliding into the familiar grooves. None of us, after receiving the fullness of the Spirit, suddenly becomes a joyful, self-giving servant. This is what we want to be. But it won't happen until we begin working out, in daily living, the spirit of servanthood which God has put into us. We have to discipline ourselves to do what does not come naturally to us, until it becomes natural.

 

This discipline takes place in two areas: our bodies and our minds. We begin by presenting our bodies to God as living sac­rifices, as the apostle Paul counsels us in Romans 12. Daily we offer our bodies to God to be temples of his Spirit so that the will of Christ Jesus may be accomplished through these hands, these feet, these tongues. We commit ourselves to worshiping God with our bodies all day long. Then we go forth into the day, remembering that our bodies belong, not to us, but to our Lord.

 

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?  1 Corinthians 6:15

 

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Sprit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.                                                                              1 Corinthians 6:19-20

 

This means that the Lord is going to do the Father's will, using our bodies, even while we're sorting laundry, fixing cars, making beds, answering phones, driving down the freeway. He is going to help, encourage, strengthen, heal people, using our bodies. Our role in this miracle is simply to keep presenting our bodies to the Father as living sacrifices. The Lord's role is to turn our bodies into sacraments, manifestations of his presence in the real world, as we go about our lives.

 

The second part of this discipline of service is to continu­ously choose not to be conformed to the spirit of the world around us, but to be transformed (as Paul explains in Romans 12) by the renewing of our minds. So that allowing our think­ing to be lifted daily and hourly into the mind of Christ, we can manifest God's redemptive will in this troubled world through simple acts of service: "Have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant" (Phil 2:5-7).

 

We discipline ourselves to think like servants. By the power of the Spirit we translate the servant-mind of Christ into our daily planning, the practical decisions that need to be made, hour by hour.

 

When our daughters were in their teens, they were caught up in a revival that was visiting the youth of Detroit and many of its churches. The clearest evidence to Jean and me that our daughters' hearts had been touched was that their teenage self­-preoccupation was strikingly transformed into servanthood. Our son, who was eight years old at the time, was so impressed with his sisters' new approach that he began to imitate it.

 

"What's going on", we wondered? "Is this for real?"

 

It was. They had found spiritual renewal and, with no small amount of effort, were training their minds to think like ser­vants.

 

Personal revival, for the first time in our lives, brings us the power to live in this world as servants of God and of each other. The Spirit who lives in us is the Spirit of servanthood. He imparts to us the very mind of Christ. Now comes the joyful task of turning our new heredity into flesh-and-blood living by disciplining ourselves to think and act like servants.

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

CHAPTER 5  OTHER PUBLICATIONS