As we end the "Feed the Fire" theme...

Most of us have participated in GEMS Sunday and are finishing up our GEMS year, or will be doing so within the month. This devotional, from the GEMS Service Center April Newsletter, gives us encouragement to keep that fire burning in our hearts, even when we are on a break from GEMS for the summer!

The Fire Must Be Kept Burning

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?”

Luke 24:32

In the book of Leviticus God gives instructions to the priests about burnt offerings that still apply to us today. The fire on the altar must be kept burning; it must not go out. Every morning the priest is to add firewood and arrange the burnt offering on the fire and burn the fat of the fellowship offerings on it. The fire must be kept burning on the altar continuously; it must not go out (Leviticus 6:12-13).

What was true for the altar remains true for our hearts: The fire on the altar of our hearts must not go out! Warren W. Wiersbe writes, “Let’s follow the example of the priest and each morning get rid of the old ashes, stir up the fire, and offer a burnt offering to the Lord.”

Daily we must fan into flame the gift of God (2 Timothy 1:6). Our lives are to be living sacrifices that must be kept burning. Therefore, I urge you, brothers (sisters), in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:1-2).

Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu conformed and compromised God’s commands about how offerings were to be sacrificed. They took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command (Leviticus 10:1). How did God respond to their disobedience? Fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD (v. 2).

When we conform and compromise God’s commands our hearts become lukewarm. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot, I wish you were either one or the other (Revelation 3:15). How does God respond to our disobedience? So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth (v 16).

Being a children’s ministry volunteer doesn’t necessarily mean that the fire within the altar of our hearts is burning brightly. For example, Children’s Ministry Magazine reported that the average children’s volunteer reads the Bible only once or twice a month when alone. Surely if the priests only attended to the altar’s flame once or twice a month, the flame would die out.

May we daily keep the fire burning so the words of the two believers on the road to Emmaus may be true of us, too. “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32)

PASSION Step: What will you do today to keep the fire stirred and burning within your heart?

Give me the love that leads the way, the faith that nothing can dismay, the hope no disappointments tire, the passion that will burn like fire; Let me not sink to be a clod:

Amy Carmichael, Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.