Heartfire

The heart is for flames. The soul yearns for fire.

The human heart offers itself upon the altar of sacrifice to be consumed.
To what does the heart give itself?
On what altar is the sacrificial fire burning?
What fire is kindled there?With what is our heart inflamed?
What passion consumes us?

Peering across the landscape of human experience
we can discern many sources of fire.
For instance, most of us have experienced the fire and warmth
that a romantic relationship kindles within.
When we have found that special someone, incipient interaction sparks a fire
that begins to consume and to warm what before might have been a cold and empty heart.

Most of us have never felt so alive, so warmed within, so passionate.For many this type of burning within is so much to be desired that they will seek to kindle this flame
and continually fan even the idea of it, with romance novels and movies
when it is absent in an actual personal relationship.
We all long to be so consumed to kindle something in our heart.

The heart is for flames the soul yearns for fire.

Alcohol is another way that one seeks to kindle a fire within.
Whole nations experience widespread and epidemic abuse of this intoxicant
as its use has even been stamped with a measure of social acceptability.
Imbibing ‘spirits’ is another way anxious souls seek to meet the hearts yearning.

The scriptures talk about those who seek wine until they are ‘inflamed’ by it.

… they are inflamed with wine.
Isaiah 5.11

Most often it is a deeper thirst than a dry throat that many seek to quench.
In pubs across the world multitudes spend hour upon hour at wooden
altar like structures upon which they rest their elbows in prayer like fashion
while kindling a slow burn within.

The heart is for flames .The soul yearn for fire

In these ways and a multitude of others, the heart,being the desperate lonely hunter that it is, goes about seeking an altar on which to offer itself — a sacrificial offering
to be consumed by the flames of the altar.

Needy, the human heart will become inflamed with lust, greed, hatred, love (true and false), religion, idolatry, witchcraft, drugs, money, and on and on…

…enflaming itself with idols under every green tree.
Isaiah 57.5

A prophet addressed this issue when he wrote,

Behold, ye that kindle a fire, that compass about yourselves with sparks:
walk in the light of your fire and in the sparks that ye have kindled.
This ye shall have of mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow.
Isaiah 50.11

Not coming to the Lord for fire, we all will seek something or other to warm us within.
And just as nature abhors a vacuum, so the human heart abhors the absence
of a filling and warming fire, and many abuse this reality
rather than accepting the heavenly cure.

For they have made ready their heart like an oven…
in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.
Hosea 7.6

We all yearn to feel alive, to relieve the tension and the boredom;
to be warmed in such a way as to fight the cold, fear, and the loneliness.
We look for that which is beyond ourselves.
We look for that which will enhance our lives.

And there are many promising lights, and deceitful,
that attract our attention from out of the darkness.

…for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.
2 Corinthians 11.14

Yes, there are many and divers fires that would draw us
to their proffered light and warmth.
Evil is often disguised as a warming fire.

The heart is for flames the soul yearns for fire- but God’s judgment upon life
that is not found in Him is evident.
There are sad eyes everywhere.
Joy has withered away from the sons and daughters of men.

The rivers dry up, the land mourns, the harvest is not plentiful.
Hosea 4.3

Yes, that harvest of the human heart is mournfully thin—
all because men and women choose their own way,
following after the desires of their own heart, mind and imagination.

The heart is for flames and the soul hungers for fire but mankind
walking in the light of their own fires have this from the Lord’s hand – they lie down in sorrow.

In times past an empty hearth meant a cold house. But where a fire burned within
the inhabitants could rest comfortably. Likewise the human heart is restless
until it finds its rest in God-cold and hard until warmed by the fire that is God Himself.

“Our God is a consuming fire.” the apostle proclaimed.
God will consume the heart with a fire that will always be burning,
While all other fires burn out and leave the user sick and full of sorrow,self loathing and pain,
the fire of God burns with health and vitality, sure and eternal.

Jesus, proclaiming the salvation that would come after his departure
and knowing the need and hunger of fallen hearts, promised,

“Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire.”

O the wonderful fire that is God.He burns in our hearts with sweet assurance
of his presence and favor when we invite the Holy Ghost in.

Jesus promised that he would give the Holy Spirit to all who would ask saying,

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children:
how much more shall your heavenly Father
give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?
Luke 11.13

The heart is for flames the soul hungers for fire and God who gives
the Holy Ghost to those who seek and obey Him also provides that needed Heartfire.