may your hearts burn

Resurrection Sunday. Really every day since the original Resurrection Sunday has been a resurrection day, for He has risen and his resurrection power is ever available. I read all the resurrection accounts this morning. Some things struck me. Raw emotions of fear mixed with joy, terror and bewilderment, wonder and awe mark the hearts of many of the first witnesses. I thought it was cool that Jesus chose to reveal himself first to a woman who had been delivered from seven devils. The greater your deliverance, the greater your participation in how God is choosing to reveal himself. I noticed that when the disciples met up with Jesus in Galilee, right before the Great Commission, it says that they worshiped him but some doubted. (Mt. 28:17) How do you doubt the resurrection when the one who had been crucified is standing right before you? This doubt thing seemed to be everywhere after the resurrection. In fact Jesus had to rebuke his disciples for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen. (Mark16:14) Thomas was not the only one. And then in Luke's account I noticed this interesting connection between the head and the heart. On the road to Emmaus Jesus says to his disciples who are struggling to get what's going on "How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!" They later recognized that as he opened the scriptures to them that their hearts burned within them (Luke 24:32). Jesus saw that they had hard hearts that were slow to believe. So he thawed their hearts with his presence. With life from HisWord. Near the end of the Luke account, Jesus goes for their minds: "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds?" (Lk. 28:38) Then in verse 45 it says "Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures." So which is it that is necessary to believe and understand, the heart or the head? Yes. I think that it is with our hearts that we believe, but it is with the mind that we perceive. Revelation comes first to our minds and then filters to our hearts. If our minds are closed, the revelation doesn't make it down into our hearts. The heart is the final destination. Revelation was never meant to stay in the mind. A heart without a mind makes us naive and gullible to whatever deception the enemy can throw at us. But a mind without a heart makes us more like robots than like God. His agenda is to set your heart ablaze. Your heart should burn when Jesus unpacks the Scriptures for you. This is the purpose of 24-7 prayer. To ignite hearts. God is a pyromaniac. He wants you to burn. He likes watching his people burn. He gets a kick out of it. Our campus doesn't need more highly organized people. It doesn't need more intellectually astute people. It doesn't need more beautiful and trendy people. It needs burning people. John Wesley prayed everyday: "Lord, set me on fire that people would come from miles around to watch me burn." Wesley understood that it wasn't only God who was a pyromaniac. Deep down we all are. We long to see people engulfed in fiery passion for Jesus. There is a verse that gets at the heart of God's heart and is fitting for meditation amongst a people engaging in 24-7 prayer. It is Jeremiah 24:7. It reads: "I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart." What does it look like when we return to God with all our hearts? It looks like a bonfire. This Easter, may you return to your Lord with all your heart, and may you find it being strangely warmed. May it become a raging inferno of passion that spreads wildfires of revival everywhere you go. Here's to the arsonists for Jesus. Burn baby burn.