Burning Hearts

 When I use the phrase burning heart, I am not talking about the acid reflux from eating something spicy at dinner. I'm referring to a soul burning hot with love, zeal, resolve, and passion in knowing and serving God. Such people seem to be few and far in between sitting comfortably and callously in the pews week after week. 

Think about it. For all our money spent to disciple people, in some churches tens of thousands, others hundreds of thousands, and a few millions, what do we really have to show for it? Only about 50% of the membership ever show up. The majority do not support the church through volunteering in a ministry. While many may support the church financially, the minority do so with full ten percent of their income. One statistic reports that 9:10 people have never shared their faith in Jesus Christ with a lost person. 95% have never personally prayed with another person to trust Jesus as their Savior. These are sobering statistics which do not indicate we have people with burning hearts in our congregations. 

When I think of the millions of dollars spent on building facilities, adding specialized staff to oversee ministries, producing more programs to keep people busy, and then look at the end result of all that, I am grieved. We are producing good church members. Are we producing people with burning hearts who go continually to make other disciples? Matt 28:19 

When I think about my own spiritual journey from conversion to this day, I see some things that made the difference for me. God put men in my life early on to personally disciple me. I was taught from my conversion that we are supposed to witness for our Lord Jesus Christ. It is commanded all through the Bible. Matt 28:19-20, Mark 16:15, Acts 1:8, Acts 20:24, Rom 1:14-16 just to name a few. People know this. They have heard it over and over again. They simply refuse to obey it. We are commanded to go make disciples who in turn make other disciples? Seeing people trust Jesus as their Savior is like pouring gasoline on an already existing fire. I got to baptize a young man this past Sunday morning. I wish I could do that every single week by the dozens at a time. This past summer we baptized 20 people in Lake Meredith. The joy was enthusiastic and contagious even for those who just showed up at  the lake for a Sunday afternoon picnic and swimming. Each person changed by Jesus and rescued from eternal damnation. That should make any believer's heart burn. 

I had a passionate follower of Jesus lead me to trust Jesus for salvation. That man did not stop there. He spent the next couple of years investing in me. In essence, he reproduced himself in me. The challenge was for him to make a disciple who would in turn make other disciples. That is what I've tried to do for the last three decades. I've tried to reproduce myself in other young men and women. His investment in my life resulted in a burning heart that burns more today than back then. Through the years, God put others in my path who did the same. They invested in me and made my heart burn even more. Men like Eli Bernard, Charles Roberts, Dr. Frankie Rainey, David Munden, Eric Adcock, Galli Davis, Jeff Robinson, Keith Nash, Les Chambers, Karl Don Hughes, Greg Hughes, Kelly Hughes, Mark Beaty, Tim Shirley, Jase Waller, Sean Decker, Herb Rios, and many many others. These men helped me burn brighter and hotter. 

Then there are the authors. Leonard Ravenhill, A.W. Tozer, Rees Howells, E.M. Bounds, Jim Cymbala, Roberts Liardon, and Mark Batterson to list a few of my favorites. Each added to the burning. Each spurred me to blaze higher and hotter. There is no room for ice cycle sermons preached by cold hearted preachers. We need fire hot messages born in prayer that are used by God to exhort, convict, inspire, ignite, and empower listeners. We must have devoted passionate burning disciples who live on mission to make other disciples. 

The number one factor I contribute to my burning heart is that I try to stay close to the flame. God is a consuming fire. The closer I get to Him in prayer the more my heart burns. The lack of burning hearts indicates to me that we do not have church members spending much time in the blazing presence of God. What a shame. Many are content with lukewarm hearts. This makes God vomit. Rev 3:16

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church, once asked God to set him on fire so that others would come and watch him burn. I would add one thing to that thought. May people come and watch us burn for Jesus, and have the fire of God to spread to those watching. 

In February of 2024 a wildfire spread through the Panhandle of Texas scorching hundreds of thousands of acres, killing tens of thousands of cattle, and destroying hundreds of structures. I heard over 200 homes were destroyed by the fires in Fritch, TX alone. Other communities were hit just as hard. The conditions were right. A lot of rain that year produced a lot of dry dead grass. The humidity was low that day and the winds were high. One spark ignited walls of fire that spread fast. 

What if that same thing were to happen spiritually? God has people prepared for salvation. The conditions are right. The harvest is plentiful. What if any one us were used by God to be the spark that ignited revival in our region. I pray it be so. I pray we burn for God and seek to spread that fire to those around us. Just imagine what good might come from that. I trust God for it.