Did you ever feel like your life is pretty dry and empty? Does the daily routine that we often fall into leave you longing for something more? Maybe you can't explain what it is exactly, but you've probably experienced this before. Doesn't it just seem like there should be more to life than this? Don't you wish you could wake up every morning with the fire and the drive to not only make it through the day, but to live and die for something that is altogether bigger than yourself? I'm sure you have. This longing is, from what I can tell, a fundamental part of the human experience, and it is something that, I believe, the Bible addresses very clearly.
Near the end of the gospel of Luke, two of Jesus' disciples are walking along the road toward a town called Emmaus. Jesus is dead, so they think. They saw Him crucified with their own eyes. They had "hoped that he was the one that was going to redeem Israel" (Luke 24:21), and in the sight of His broken body they saw all their hopes and dreams crucified as well.
They had spent three years, the greatest three years, walking with God Himself. Those three years must have been the most incredible existence you can imagine: the miraculous was an everyday occurance, every single day something new and amazing was bound to happen, and Jesus Himself took them into His counsel by opening their understanding to the deepest things of God. They were lifted up out of their mundane, ordinary lives--lives of no great prestige or prowess--and dropped in the middle of the most exciting time in history, when God Himself walked the Earth as a man. Then one day, the same crowds that only a week before had shouted "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!" (Luke 19:38) begged Pilate to have Him crucified, and it must have looked like the end of everything.
Luke 24:14 says that as they walked (it must have been one of the gloomiest walks anyone ever took, considering the circumstances), "They were talking with eachother about everything that had happened." In other words, they were letting the memory of Jesus--of all that He had said and all that He had done--live on in their conversation. They must have been miserable, thinking that all these good things had come to such a seemingly tragic end, yet the burden of all these things was so heavy upon them that they could think about nothing else, however it must have hurt them to do so.
In the middle of this despondent situation, however, something incredible happened. "As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him" (Luke 24:15-16). So here's Jesus, the same one they saw crucified, alive and well. Yet, somehow or other, they did not recognize Him when He came in their midst. But as they began to speak with Him, it says that Jesus began to explain everything to them, from beginning to end. "And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself" (Luke 24:27). This greatly interested these disciples, and they asked Him to stay with them and continue explaining these things to them. He did, and as they began to eat, the Bible says that "their eyes were opened an they recognized him" (Luke 24:31), and immediately disappeared.
All this is just backstory. I want to talk about the effect that this visitation from Christ had upon these two men. The next verse says something very important: "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?'" There was something about the presence of Jesus and the Words that He was speaking to them that caused their hearts to burn. They hadn't recognized Him, necessarily, but as He began speaking to them on the road, the excitement, the passion, and the joy that had accompanied their part in the ministry of Jesus--the feelings that they had thought had been nailed to a cross with the mutilated body of Christ--began to flood back into their hearts.
To make a long story short, Jesus appears to the disciples a few more times, and then He ascends into heaven. But these brief encounters with the risen Christ were enough to inspire these people to give the rest of their lives for the continuation of His ministry and the advancement of His gospel. They spent the rest of their lives telling the world this incredible news: Jesus is alive! They endured hardship and persecution that none of us in our comfortable, privileged, and leisurely lifestyles could possibly imagine, and many of them gave up their lives in some pretty nasty ways for the sake of being faithful to their Lord.
What could produce such passion? What could cause such incredible fruit? What could enable a few ragamuffin fishermen from a tiny little country in the Middle East to shake the most powerful empire on the planet and reshape the entire course of history? They had an encounter with the risen Christ. They saw His face and they heard His voice. He made Himself real to them. They knew who He was and what He could do. He caused their hearts to burn within them, and apparently, that fire never fizzled out.
How can we live our lives in such a way that we rise above the boring, commonplace, monotony that God never intended for us in the first place? How do we motivate ourselves to spread the gospel of Jesus to the nations, allowing Christ to breathe His life into a dying world? We need to let Him set our hearts on fire. We need to desire Him so much that He will meet us where we are at, flood us with His goodness and His mercy, shower us with His love, and wipe out every desire that does not allign itself with Him.
Hebrews 12:29 says that "our God is a consuming fire." What does that mean? It means that when we really let Him into our lives, and we open up every door in our hearts and say "Lord, have your way in me," He will come in and consume us like fire. Fire will consume everything in its path, and God is this way. This may sound extreme at first, but trust me: I can't think of a better way to live, because when God consumes us, He consumes everything that is not of Him. His fire will burn through every negative emotion, every irritating temptation, and everything that hinders you from living life according to His perfect plan. It will topple every stronghold the devil has attempted to build up in your life, and it will make way for His glory to come and fill you completely.
God has such incredible things in store for us, but we will never see things things come to pass as long as we are in love with the things of the world. We need to lay our desires at the altar of His presence and let Him have His way. We need to invite Him to be Lord over every area of our lives. We need Him to spark us with a passion for His Kingdom and compassion for the lost, the dying, the hurting, and the lonely. Do we want to see people healed? Do we want to see people set free? Do we want to see God come and meet us in His awesome power and put meaning, purpose, and fruitfulness back into every moment of our lives? This will only happen as we desire His presence. This will only come as we open our hearts to Him and ask Him to consume us.
We will only impact this world with anything worthwhile or lasting to the degree that we become more like Jesus. He wants to draw near to us, but we must first draw near to Him. Cry out to Him, and He will answer. He will do for you what He did for those two disciples on the Emmaus road, because He is no respecter of persons. He will heal you of your brokenness, fill you with His wisdom, and set your heart ablaze with His glory. Ask Him to reveal Himself to you, and you won't be disappointed. God is so much more amazing than we know, and so much more real than we are often willing to recognize. Let's lay aside our trivial pursuits and set our eyes on His Kingdom. Once we've seen Him for who He is, we just can't help but live our lives completely for Him.
Consume me, Lord Jesus. Set my heart on fire. I want to burn for You.
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