The Burning Heart: Restoring Your Spiritual Passion after Broken Dreams and Disappointments

By David Holdaway

Sadly, many Christians start the Christian walk well but finish badly. This book examines the reasons why, and offers healing and hope to those who feel their heart is not on fire as it once was, and want to return to that place of passion and love for Jesus.
Many Christians suffer from broken dreams and disappointments which extinguish th

• Language: English
• Publisher: Upfront
• Release date: Jan 9, 2009
• ISBN: 9781907929281

Book preview

Introduction

When The Thrill is Gone

The church at Ephesus had known great ministry. The apostle Paul spent more time there than anywhere else, some three years. It had been extremely well taught with Apollos, Priscilla and Aquilla, John and Timothy having been its pastors. (This explains their sound teaching which Jesus commended them for.) It was an evangelistic church and was strong, powerful and sacrificial. Yet despite all this Jesus was threatening to close it down. (Revelation 2:1-7)

Today it may well have been applauded as a great church but Jesus’ gaze penetrates beyond all the activity and doctrinal orthodoxy and sees a fellowship where the thrill had gone. There was some passion but it came out of duty not devotion. Their heads were filled with learning about God but their hearts were empty of love for Jesus.

Imagine sitting in the service that Sunday morning when Johns letter was being read out. Jesus begins to list all the church’s achievements, good works, sound doctrine, zealous outreach, patient suffering, but then comes a moment of stunning shock and amazement as He says, Yet I hold this against you, you have forsaken your first love, Revelation 2:4.

Doctrine without love produces a church that becomes first formalised and finally fossilised. Faith without relationship simply becomes a religious routine. Jesus does not want a bride that does not love Him

How do you lose your first love?

Slowly

These were second and third generation Pentecostals. The church had been birthed in Apostolic zeal and power, but now the years had gone by and their doctrine was sound, their duty was commendable but their hearts had grown cold.

Subtlety

Gradually the love begins to fade away. You discover you have relationship but little fellowship. You live together but don’t spend much quality time together. Rules and regulations take the place of love and compassion. You become caught up with what you believe far more than with whom you believe.

Jesus tells them to remember the height from which they have fallen. Repent and return to the things they did at first. Then they will have the right to eat from the Tree of Life, which is in the paradise of God, Revelation 2:7.

When Adam sinned he was barred from the Tree of Life, cut off from communion with God. Jesus promises spiritual life and fellowship will be restored and it will be like paradise.

This book is a sequel to my previous book The Captured Heart. There I wrote, Whatever captures our heart will control our lives and determine our destiny. The reason I have written The Burning Heart is to help those who have gone or who are going through pain and loss of expectation with broken and unfulfilled dreams. Many have lost the spiritual passion they once knew. They still function but polish and professionalism never has been or can be a substitute for a Burning Heart.

My prayer is that as you read the following pages your heart will burn with a new zeal because Jesus is not a disappointment. Your greatest days are before you because the best is still to come. This is one of the great joys of being a follower of Jesus. In the world when you reach a certain age your best days are behind you but in God’s kingdom whatever age you are your best day’s are still ahead as long as you keep your heart on fire for God.

Chapter 1

The World is not

Worth Preaching To

Such is the human race. Often it does seem such a pity that Noah … didn’t miss the boat.

Mark Twain

When I first read the words of the title to this chapter – the world is not worth preaching to, I must confess to being both surprised and relieved, especially since they were from the lips of one of this nation’s greatest preachers, C H Spurgeon. If I am honest there are times when serving God in our fallen world seems not so much a joy and high calling but rather a reliving of The Charge of The Light Brigade. Under fire from all directions and wondering what on earth am I doing here and will I ever get out alive. I know this may sound a little dramatic but those who have been there will know what I am talking about.

Whenever I am asked if I regret becoming a minister I tell people how John Newton, the former slave trader and writer of the hymn Amazing Grace, described it. He became a parish minister in Olney, Northamptonshire, and served God there faithfully for many years, he said, The Christian ministry is the worst of all trades but the best of all professions.²

There are great highs but there are also deep lows. Sometimes the job is awful but the calling is beyond compare. This is true for all those who serve God and is part of the paradox of what Paul spoke of when he wrote, For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men, 1 Corinthians 4:9.

Here is the full passage, from which Spurgeon’s statement about this world comes,

"In this fallen world, is it not a weary business to be a minister of Christ today? If I might have my choice I would sooner follow any vocation, so far as the comfort of it is concerned, than this of the ministry to the sons of men, for we beat the air. This deaf generation will not hear us. What is this perverse generation the better for years and years of preaching?…The world is not worth preaching to."³

Before we are too quick to make comment and pass judgement we need to know a bit more about this amazing man.

When he was only 19 years old Spurgeon was asked to leave his tiny village church in order to become pastor of one of the most prestigious churches in London. At first he was so shocked at the offer that he wrote back and asked if they had the right Spurgeon. When the pulpit committee assured him that they did, he reluctantly accepted the position on a six-month trial basis, a condition he imposed on himself. Within a few months Park Street Church grew from less than 200 to over 1,000 people, and a temporary meeting site was arranged so that the church could be enlarged. The new building could seat about 5,000, but at the first service it was filled to capacity, and hundreds stood outside hoping to get in. Membership grew to over 14,000 and this at a time when London’s population was only about one million.

During his 37 years of ministry at New Park Street the congregation grew to become the largest evangelical church in the world. Spurgeon preached to his largest audience ever, 23,654 assembled in the mammoth Crystal Palace, London, for a national day of fasting and prayer (October 7, 1857). Today, nearly a century after his death, there is more material in print by him than by any other Christian author, living or dead.

Despite all his strengths and accomplishments a great deal of criticism was levelled against him. Two of the things he was criticised for are a little curious. From his own funds he purchased and enjoyed with his family an extremely large home with spacious grounds. Few of those who were critical of this had any idea of the pressures he was under and the need to have a place where he could relax and have privacy.

Fault was also found with his liking for a good cigar. On one occasion a man called on him to reprimand him for his cigar smoking. Spurgeon’s response revealed his humour and lightening wit. When I take this to an extreme then I will stop, he said. When he was challenged what he considered extreme he replied with a broad smile, two cigars at one time.⁴

On another occasion D. L. Moody, who greatly admired Spurgeon and with whom he became great friends, went to London to meet him. When Spurgeon answered the door with a cigar in his mouth, Moody fell down the stairs in shock. How could you, a man of God, smoke that? protested the great American evangelist. Spurgeon took the cigar out of his mouth and walked down the steps to where Moody was still standing in bewilderment. Putting his finger on Moody’s rather rotund stomach, he smiled and said, The same way you, a man of God, could be fat!⁵

There were times during his ministry when he was plunged into deep depression, due in part to gout and rheumatism, but also for other reasons such as his wife becoming an invalid at the age of just 33 and the vicious personal attacks made against him. In one biography Arnold Dallimore wrote, "What he suffered in those times of darkness we may not know…even his desperate calling on God brought no relief. ‘There are dungeons,’ said Spurgeon, ‘beneath the