We should ask ourselves, Is that my experience?
A Framework for Faith/Spiritual Vision
The flame of God’s love dwells in my heart/as a jewel of gold is placed in a silver dish.
– Columba (tradition), Noli Pater (Irish, 6th century)
“Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the raod, while he opened to us the Scriptures? “
– Luke 24.32
Calvin took as his insignia a burning heart in open hands, offered to God in His service. And he lived like he actually knew that experience.
Hearts burning within us as Christ opens to us the Word of God: We should ask ourselves, Is that my experience? Is it even my desire? When we open our Bibles, do we expect to encounter the living Christ? Do we strain and study and wait, wait, wait until the Spirit of God draws back the veil separating us from that unseen realm, and ushers us into the very presence of God and His glory (2 Cor. 3.12-18)?
Our hearts will surely burn within us when that’s the case. And when our hearts burn like that, we will want to live out the heat of the glory fire that Christ by His Spirit has kindled within us. For when God’s love and truth penetrate the depths of our souls – heart, mind, and conscience – then loving God with all our soul will burn with spiritual energy through every aspect of our lives.
This is what it means to live from glory to glory.
But if we don’t expect this, don’t seek it, don’t insist with pleadings that the Lord provide what only He can, then our times in His Word will be fairly routine and unfruitful. Interesting, certainly. But hardly life-changing.
Does your heart burn with love for God? It can. And if once it ever does, you’ll never want to go back to anything less than that in your walk with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today at The Fellowship of Ailbe
ReVision – Some very serious people are beginning to create models for the future of the cosmos. But are they leaving out one very important fact?
T. M. Moore, tmmoore@ailbe.org
