Recently at The Grove we finished a series we have been in for 24 weeks. We have been going through the Gospel of Luke chapter by chapter in a series we have called "Know Jesus:Luke."
Our last night of the series was one of those messages that resonated with me and I believe everyone needs to hear it. It isn't because I did an amazing job delivering it or that there is some bit of new never heard before information. The reason I think everyone needs to hear it is because I believe that every single one of us who have signed up to follow Jesus will have days where we feel like giving up. And I think the three things we talked about on our last night are essentials for us to stay in this race until our dyeing day.
“32 They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
If we are going to be people who change the world around us and love Jesus every day of our lives we have got to be people who have burning hearts. By that I mean that we must be people who continually have a passion for Jesus and His story and His Kingdom burning in our hearts. To do that I think there are three essentials, not the only things, but three core ideas that we must grasp and implement in order to do this. I am going to talk about these three things in three separate posts, so stay tuned! You can get part two HERE. You can get part three HERE.
1. Feast on the story of Jesus continually.
In the story in Luke 24:13-35 what were they talking about when their hearts were burning?
“25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”
The thing that was on their lips when their hearts were burning was the story of Jesus, it was the Gospel. Jesus was going through the Old Testament, explaining the truth about himself.
To keep your heart burning in the midst of long days in your journey with Jesus, His story must ever be on your lips and in your heart!
Your story will not excite you some days.
Your story will not sustain you.
Your story will not consume you.
The story of Jesus will cause your heart to burn, it will cause your life to matter.
It sounds so simple and maybe so religious and maybe you will hear your mother's voice when you read the next few words but to be a burning one for the long haul you have to read your Bible.
If I had to choose one part of the Bible to read everyday for the rest of my life it would be The Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the story of Jesus. Sometimes we try to have a great Bible plan to read through in a year so we get quantity and my challenge would be don't move on to a new chunk of scripture until you are living out the current one you are reading. That is why the Gospels are what I love to read, and why they are so challenging and convicting for me.
I talk with quite a few people who tell me "JD I am listening but I am not hearing God..." I don't think it is that he isn't speaking, I think that it is often hard to discern the voice of God when you don't know what it sounds like.
To be honest with you it sounds like what he gave us in the Bible. How Jesus spoke when he walked the earth is an important thing for you and I to study and understand. Because I think he still speaks, and I think he stills speaks the way he did then.
Don’t read your Bible to cross it of your reading plan, read it to emulate and replicate it.
If you spend your days getting to know Jesus more and more, you will see your life change.
“13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.”
Because of the Holy Spirit in our lives when you and I read the Word of God it has the ability to change us. It has the ability to mold our lives into looking more and more like Jesus.
“12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
Live with intentionality in stoking your heart so that it burns. You have to add wood to a fire in order to keep it going, the Word of God is wood for our hearts to continue to burn for Jesus.
One man who did no wrong laying down his life for people who do nothing but wrong. That is the story of Jesus.
The story of Jesus will cause you to carry on when you are weary. It will cause you to speak into other's lives. It will cause you to pray. It will cause your every day to matter. I love what Jeremiah wrote concerning the Word of God:
“9 But if I say, “I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.”
What if we as people of God were so consumed with and full of the story of Jesus that it burned inside of us and we could not contain ourselves from telling the story of the God Man to the world that so desperately needs to hear it?
Telling the story of Jesus will consume your life, you will not ever get tired of seeing the lightbulbs go off in people’s eyes.
If you are to be a city on a hill, a burning light in the dark, you must feed and fuel your fire with the story of Jesus.
His life. His message. What he taught. What he did. His death. His resurrection.
To be a burning one, feast continually on the story of Jesus. Allow it to take root in your heart. Talk about it often. Think about it often. Write about it often.
Don't miss Part Two of the Burning Ones!