You Gotta Burn...

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In prayer this morning, God reminded me of the feeling of "burning." When I ate a burrito bowl from one of my favorite spots Chipolte, earlier this week, I bit into an onion or pepper of some kind that sent me reeling. My tongue was on fire and I couldn't pay attention to anything or anyone until that fire was attended to and fully quenched. I felt as if I could not run fast enough to the kitchen.
God told me that I have to "burn" for Him the same way. Nothing else in life should matter except for my strong pursuit of God. 'Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness..." He said that when we begin to burn for Him, we will be like a burning bush that carried the voice, presence and purpose of God to Moses (1 man whose story has touched millions of lives). When you do not feel confident or know what to say, God will place a burning coal on our tongues like Jeremiah, or when we are defeated and ready to quit His purpose inside of us will burn like a literal fire "shut up in (our) bones." When we go out into the world and we have been burning for God we will not bring any type of irritation or infection to another person, place, or thing. Much in the way we burn a safety pin prior to pulling out a deep splinter in the body.

You Gotta Burn!

No matter how hot it gets like that bush the fire will not overtake you. In order to digest the deep, large chunks of meat in the bible and spoken words of God, it must be tenderized and "cooked" by our burning for the things of God. We have got to burn like those forest fires in California, which were so dominant in the tearing down all kinds of structures (strongholds), that it caused the entire region, state, nation and even the world to acknowledge the Power fueling the fire.

You Gotta Burn, to bring light in dark places. You gotta burn, for the glory of God to truly be seen. You gotta burn so the word can truly be a light to our feet and a lamp to our path. You gotta burn in order to remove contaminants from God's living water much like the oil spill down in the gulf coast. You gotta burn to stay warm and have a compassionate heart of flesh and not a cold heart of stone. You gotta burn because fire is necessary for survival in any wilderness. Ask any Survivor television contestant; most would kill for that piece of flint necessary to start a fire. We must set our faces like flint and our lives should truly burn for the things of God.

One of the greatest Christian leaders John Wesley was once asked how he accumulated such a vast following of people and he replied, "I set myself on fire and people come to watch me BURN!"