Keep The Fire Burning
Mark 12:30
Did you ever notice that a lot of times when people first come to the Lord, when they are a new Christian, that they have a passion and a fire for God, but then it seems after a while, that fire kind of burns out. After a while they kind of loose their desire to serve God, and they just aren’t dedicated to the things of God like they used to be. Well, 9 times out of 10 this happens because of disillusionment. Christians become disillusioned, this comes from either a lack of understanding, a wrong focus, or wrong expectations of God, and eventually disillusionment can lead to apathy. And apathy leads to spiritually unhealthy Christians and idolatry. I remember a Peanuts cartoon in which Charlie Brown was talking to Lucy. He remarked about the tragedy of so much apathy in the world today. And Lucy responded, "Yeah, it’s terrible. But who cares?"
Now a lot of times you see these same things in people who are having marital problems. Husbands and wives become disillusioned, because they are either focusing on the wrong things, they had the wrong expectations of what their spouse should’ve been, or they just don’t understand how marriage is supposed to work, and so they become apathetic in their marriage, and they loose the passion that they once had. And so today I want to talk about how to keep your love for God alive, and how to keep the passion in your relationship with Him.
How do I love God passionately? In our text Jesus gives us four ways to love God. We call this the Great Commandment (Read Mark 12:30)
He tells us first that you must love the Lord your God with all your heart. To love the Lord with all your heart means to love Him with pure devotion. It’s not enough to give Christ a place in our hearts. We are called to love Him with all of our heart. When you love someone with all of your heart, you think about them almost all of the time. You long to be with them. They’re the priority in your life.
And to love God with all your heart is the same. It means that your heart is devoted to Him. It means that you are faithful to Him. He becomes the most important thing in your life.
But the love we are to have for God has another characteristic. You are not only to love God with all your heart, you are to love Him with all your soul. To love God with all our soul means that our love for God ought to be full of passion. And we are all people of passion. Some people are passionate about sports, some people are passionate about their work, some people are passionate about hobbies, like art, or music. People are passionate about all sorts of things, but how many of us have the same passion for God that we have for these other things?
We cannot afford to be apathetic about our love for God. We must be excited about our relationship with Jesus. We must be passionate. In the Song of Solomon, we hear about the passionate kind of love we ought to have for God. Song of Solomon is a pretty racy book, if you think about it. But it’s describing a passionate, all consuming love. And about giving everything you’ve got to the one you love. And it’s a perfect example of how our love for the Lord should be. Real love is passionate love. To love God with all our soul means that we must be involved with all our emotions in our relationship to Him. And when you’ve really given Jesus all of your heart, then it’s easy to become excited about following Him.
Our love for Christ begins with a pure devotion and expresses itself by being full of passion, but there is another element. Jesus says that you are to love the Lord your God with all your mind. This is a love that is thoroughly considered. Today it seems that some Christians are so open minded that their brains are falling out. Emotionalism is a big problem in the body of Christ today. You see churches and pastors who say things like, “We’ve got to make things bigger and better to reach the lost.” But let me tell you something, the church or the pastors are not supposed to be here to entertain. In Romans chapter one the apostle Paul said, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for IT is the power of God unto salvation.” The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation, not the worship music, not the pastors preaching ability. The Gospel. But what happens a lot of times is that we have people coming to church because they like the emotional charge that they get, and because they feel good. But they are never equipped for the working of ministry, they are never built up in their most holy faith, and they are not rooted and grounded in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, which is sound Biblical teaching. And then when the storms come they end up disillusioned and apathetic.
Loving God is not an emotional expression that bypasses the mind. Now, it is true that when people rely on their own intellectual capacity to figure out God, they always come up short. Because God is too big to be totally figured out by human minds. But we can learn and know what God has revealed to us.
It is clear from the Scripture that God fully intends for our minds to be involved in our love for Him. In Romans 12, we are told that our minds need to be renewed. In 1st Peter we are told to prepare our minds for work. And here, we are told to love God with our entire mind. A mind committed to Christ and being transformed by His renewing power is a big part of keeping your passion for God.
Not only are you to love God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind, you are to love Him with all your strength. Christianity is not just a heart dedicated to God, a soul full of passionate love for Jesus, and a mind committed to studying the Word of God. Christianity must be fully lived out. To love God with all our strength means to love God in all that we do.
In Colossians 3:17 it says, "And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." Again in that same chapter, verses 23 and 24 say, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving." You see, Christianity that is just in the heart or in the head may be either emotionalism or intellectualism. For Christianity to be alive, it must be lived out. This is what makes the Christian faith the most powerful force in the world.
Sometimes you’ll hear people say that it is OK to believe whatever you want, as long as you don’t try to practice what you believe in the public arena. My wife and I are attending college at Goodwell right now, and we hear that all the time. But to tell a person that he can believe anything he wants but not practice what he believes is actually kind of silly. Of course people can believe what they want. Who can stop them? No one can dictate what you believe in the privacy of your own heart. You can believe what you want in the most atheistic society in the world. But if you believe in Jesus, and you believe what the Bible teaches then you should be doing what it teaches as well.
James chapter one verse 22 says, “But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”
To truly love God, you must love Him in all you do. A distinctive Christian lifestyle must be evident in the way you live your life, conduct your business, function on the job, and deal with your wife or husband or children.
We have to be doers of the Word, if were not, then we are deceiving ourselves. James tells us that if we are hearing God’s Word, but not doing it, if we are hearing it but not applying it to our lives then we are deceiving ourselves. He says that it’s like looking into a mirror, and examining your features, but then the minute that you walk away, you’ve forgotten what you looked like. And God’s Word is a mirror that shows mans need for grace, and mercy.
When we look into a mirror we can see if our face needs some work or not. Women know this, they will spend hours in front of a mirror putting on makeup and covering up pimples, or wrinkles, or just enhancing their natural beauty. Men on the other hand aren’t as concerned with that sort of thing. But the point I’m trying to make is that when we are hearers of God’s Word, but not doers of God’s Word, what were doing is, ignoring those spiritual pimples, wrinkles, and blemishes in our lives. God’s Word is the cure to all of our faults, and flaws, but when we don’t apply it, we will just continue in them.
So if you are not loving God passionately, why not? Have you let other things crowd God out of your life? Are you holding on to temporal things, while letting the eternal things slip away? Jesus spoke to the church in Ephesus in Revelation 2 and condemned them for forsaking their first love. He told them to repent, to make a 180 degree turn, to turn away from those things that they were doing and do those things they did at first — when they were in love with Him. Don’t let your love grow cold. If it has then fall on your knees until you get it back.
2nd Chronicles 12:14 tells us that King Rehoboam, "did evil, because he did not prepare his heart to seek the Lord.” We must prepare our heart to seek the Lord. 1st Kings 15:3 tells us that King Jeroboam walked in the sins of his father, because his heart was not loyal to the Lord. We must surrender our lives to the Lord without any strings attached.
Listen, if you’re a Christian and you’ve got a passion for God, then you need to keep that fire burning, you have to abide in Christ and walk with Him daily. You have to make sure that your love affair with the Lord doesn’t grow cold. And if you’re a Christian and you don’t have a passion for God, then there’s something wrong. That’s not the norm, and you shouldn’t accept it as such. If you don’t have that passion for God then you need to examine yourself, find out what’s wrong, and then make it right. We have to look at ourselves, and examine ourselves, because we’re sinners, our own sin nature will deceive us if we aren’t vigilant. 2nd Corinthians 13:5 says, “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves…” what is it that’s keeping you from loving God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? Are you focusing on Christ, or the things of this world? Are you holding on to the things that are temporal, while letting the things that are eternal slip by you?
Hebrews 12:1-2 says, “…Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Verse 3, “For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.”
What’s that saying? It’s saying don’t focus on the things of this world, focus on Jesus. The things of this world are temporary. But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. It means focus on Jesus because He’s the author and finisher of your faith, that means no matter what, He’s going to see you through it. How do I know that? Because it was for the joy that was set before Him that He endured the cross. Jesus endured the cross, knowing that by doing so, you would come to receive Him as Lord and Savior. Jesus went to the cross with joy, knowing that when He died on that cross, it would satisfy God’s justice, because He would be paying the penalty that man owed. And Jesus knew that by the shedding of His blood there would be forgiveness, redemption, and salvation, for all who would come to believe, and that gave Him great joy.
So what about you? Do you have a passion for God? Is that fire burning within you today? If so, will it be tomorrow?
I’m going to make two offers today. First, if you have never received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you can today. You can be made right with God, forgiven of your sins, and be given eternal life. Second, if you have received Jesus as your Lord and Savior but your love has grown cold, you can rekindle that passion today. You can return to your first love. And so if you fit into either of those two categories I want you to come forward today. Eternity is forever. Don’t spend it without Christ, and don’t spend it knowing that you could’ve done better in this life.
