One of the most dramatic moments in history occurred early one morning centuries ago as three men walked along a dusty road together. If you had been passing by on the other side, you would have seen nothing out of the ordinary—just three men talking together. But it was no ordinary day, and it was no ordinary man talking with those other two. For it was resurrection day, and the man was the risen Lord Jesus Christ.
The two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus were deeply discouraged, stunned that Jesus had died on a Roman cross. But they were also trying to make sense of reports from some women that the tomb was empty. They had no idea that the ordinary-looking man walking with them was the Lord. But Jesus is the Great Physician, and He heals more than just bodies. He ministered to their downcast hearts with a careful exposition of the Word of God, prophecies that made plain that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. And as He poured forth timeless truths into their ears, their hearts began to burn within them, hotter than ever before (Luke 24:32).
God calls His Word a fire (Jer. 23:29), and our hearts are the furnace in which it was designed to burn. One of the main purposes of Scripture is to save our souls from sin; salvation is knowing God and Christ (John 17:3) and loving God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength (Mark 12:30). Love is likened to a blazing fire, a mighty flame (Song 8:6). Scripture works knowledge into a love that blazes like a fire. Tragically, sometimes the world, the flesh, and the devil conspire to quench that fire temporarily. We become cold, distant, and hard. How can we rekindle our delight in God and His holy Word? Let me give five brief exhortations.
1. Acknowledge your coldness.
Start by being aware of how cold your heart has been toward Bible reading. Reading has been mechanical or entirely neglected. No light, no heat—that is, no insights and no passion for God. Cry out against your heart’s coldness. The Psalms are full of prayers concerning our own defective hearts. Three times in Psalms 42 and 43, the psalmist cries out against his own heart: “Why are you so downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Hope in God” (see Ps. 42:5, 11; 43:5). If a depressed person can cry out against his soul, so can one whose heart is cold and distant from God.
2. Stop quenching the fire.
When our hearts were once on fire with scriptural truth and now they are not, we must realize that nothing has changed in the Bible; heaven and earth will pass away before a single letter changes in Scripture (Matt. 5:18). No, it is we who, by our sin, have quenched the Spirit and the fire of God’s Word (1 Thess. 5:19). Our sin soaks the wood of Scripture and makes it difficult to ignite. To regain a passion for the Word of God, we need to ask God to search our hearts and lives and show us the sin that is dousing the fire of God’s Word (Ps. 139:23–24). Follow carefully the steps of confession in James 4:1–10, and soon the fire will be ready to be rekindled.
3. Seek the Holy Spirit’s illumination.
The fire of Scripture comes through the Holy Spirit who inspired and illuminates it. On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit descended onto each Christian in tongues of fire. So, as you are praying against your cold, passionless heart, specifically ask the Spirit to ignite the fire in your heart again. Open the Bible and pray that the eyes of your heart might be enlightened by the Spirit (Eph. 1:18). It is the Spirit who made the Word a fire in Jeremiah’s heart to begin with, a fire shut up in his bones, burning so hot he could not hold it in (Jer. 20:9). So the Spirit also worked in every author of Scripture, every word coming like a coal from a heavenly altar touching the lips of Isaiah, or Paul, or Peter, or John. Ask the Spirit to make His Word burn in you again.
4. Stack the kindling.
Fires start with small, easily combustible pieces called “kindling.” As you make your way back from cold deadness to a raging fire of passion for God’s Word, start with passages that clearly speak to your soul of God’s love for you in Christ. Go to the simplest passages that have burned in you previously. Christ, moved with compassion, healed the leper (Mark 1:41). Christ welcomed little children with open arms and tender touch (Matt. 19:13–15). Christ raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead with the words, “Little girl, I say to you, arise” (Mark 5:41). Milk that nourished your infant faith in Jesus can now become kindling to reignite His fire again.
5. Add the logs.
As your heart starts to burn again with insights given by the Spirit, expand to add the logs of weightier meditations. I would suggest a slow, prayerful journey through Romans 1–11. Dwell on the deeper doctrines that root your faith in eternity. Think about God’s eternal purposes for you in Christ, predestined to be conformed to His image (Rom. 8:28–30). Walk through the deepest doctrines with prayer and wonder, crying out, “Oh, the depth of the riches and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Rom. 11:33–36).
Soon, by God’s grace, you will be able to say, as did the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, “My heart is again burning within me as the Spirit opened the Scriptures to me.”
Ligonier Ministries