God’s heart burns with love for you! He has loved you from the foundations of the earth. From the beginning of time itself, God has had a loving plan for your life. He has adopted you into His family, and you are His sons and daughters. (Psalm 5; 36; John 3:16; Ephesians 1; 2:4-5; 3:18-19; Romans 5:8; 8:35-39; 1 John 3; etc.)
It is a flaming heart of love that is eternal. I grew up in the Lutheran Church, and you could enter the sanctuary at any time and hanging from the ceiling on a long chain was what we called “the eternal flame.” It was always burning, day or night. The flame was a constant reminder that God’s love is eternal and never diminishes.
Most the Church today views a relationship with God through the modern evangelistic crusades in which Christ has been proclaimed as a route out of hell. A kind of “Smokey the Bear Jesus.” The mantra has been “accept Jesus, ask Him into your life, and you can get a pass on hell and go to heaven.” There are many problems with this approach, and I don’t want to go there in this blog. But suffice it to say that such a viewpoint misses the deeper theology of just how much God the Father burns in love for you.
Jesus doesn’t just put out the fires of hell, He lights a new fire in your heart. His heart is a burning fire of love. Eternal life is a ring of fire now, today.
It is the Father’s burning heart that passionately desires to light a fire in your heart. Just as the Angel of the Lord spoke to Moses from a burning bush, a fire that never consumed the bush, God wants a fiery love relationship with you that will never diminish.
Wholehearted Love
His burning heart never stops burning! It is eternal; it is hot; it is wholehearted. Yes, that’s the operable word for this love – wholehearted love. God never does anything half-hearted. God loves you wholeheartedly! And you cannot out-sin, out-rebel, or out-run this fire of love. It is from His heart to your heart, wholeheartedly burning toward you like an out-of-control forest fire. It cannot be extinguished.
When you discover the wholehearted love of the Father, you will never be the same. Your heart will be lit up with this fire. Have you discovered the fire of God’s love? Have you experienced the wholehearted love of God? Go after it. Quit the half-hearted living and dive into the burning heart of God.
Living in His Wholehearted Love,
Pastor Steve
