The Fervent Life

I remember sitting in a coffee shop years ago; my heart bursting with newfound hope. Ghastly wounds had been healed. My lungs breathed in air for what seemed like the very first time.

Joy. It was new to me. I’d grasped snippets of it here and there in years past—but never like this. Sitting there in that coffee shop, it was the first time I realized I wanted to live a long life—the thought of which had always terrified me before.

I’d found a treasure that kept my soul in a perpetual state of joy. I’d found healing. I’d found grace. I’d found the unconditional, unrelenting love of a Heavenly Father in ways I’d never experienced before.

God had crushed my dreams out of the goodness of His love. With a compassionate hand He saved me from the pursuit of lesser things and opened my eyes to the satisfaction that could only be found in Him.

I had tasted and seen that God is truly good, and having tasted eternity, mortal pursuits could never draw my heart in the same way again. My life belonged to God. Filled with the joy of His presence I gladly threw my future down at His feet. I couldn’t articulate it back then but what I’d found was the fervent life Romans 12:11 talks about. I’d found the abundant life Jesus promised in John 10:10.

As I caught the fire of newfound faith, I read the stories of saints—fellow brothers and sisters in Christ separated by centuries—and I grew more and more in awe of God.

They saw the Living God at work in their lives. They witnessed what all of society has deemed miraculous and unexplainable—evidence of a Sovereign Being at work in their lives and the lives of all they touched.

We as Christians often look back at people like George Muller, and Amy Carmichael, and D. L. Moody, and countless others and we think “How cool would it have been to live back then? To have seen those kinds of miracles?”

We do the same thing when we look at the Bible. We read stories of miracles and we think “How amazing would it have been to have seen that? To have been able to experience the miracles of God firsthand?”

And as I sat in that coffee shop, gripping the stories of those saints in my hands, a thought occurred to me: “Why can’t I live that kind of life today? We have the same God now as they did back then. What’s stopping me?”

James himself said that even “Elijah was as human as we are” (James 5:17, NLT). So what’s stopping us? True, maybe there’s no longer a need for God to part the waters of the sea, but there are portions all throughout Scripture where God promises to do the impossible on our behalf; to provide and restore in miraculous ways that are exceedingly abundantly beyond what we could ever ask or think. What would my life look like if I actually lived as if I believed in that God?

Later that night I fell to my knees, overwhelmed by a longing stronger than anything I’d ever experienced before—the longing to see God in the land of the living; to live my life in such a way that I would see the power of God and reveal Him to others, just like so many saints throughout history. From that moment God has invited me to live such a life. He has held out His hand and offered me the chance to experience Him and His power with every step of faith that comes my way.

He has worked miracles on my behalf. He has healed and provided and restored in ways my earthly mind never considered possible. He has filled my heart with a fiery passion to declare to the world that God is who He says He is, and He will do what He says He will do; and because of that, even the weary, war torn saint has a reason to hope; to live another day with vibrant, fervent faith in expectation of what God will accomplish through a surrendered heart for His kingdom.

This life-changing season is what spawned the inspiration for The Fervent Life. As God radically changed my life He brought my attention to Romans 12:11 again and again: “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord." (NIV).

We were never meant to live ordinary lives. We were never meant to slip into the empty comfort of the mundane. We were never meant to say in our hearts "This is all there is..."

Youths were never meant to stumble around aimlessly. Forty-somethings were never meant to chase meaningless things. The elderly were never meant to bide their time waiting to die.

If you are a child of God then you have the Holy Spirit Himself living inside of you. And I assure you: The Holy Spirit inside you is not wandering around aimlessly. He is not chasing meaningless things—and I assure you, Beloved, He is not simply biding time until you die.

If you are a child of God then every breath you breathe has a purpose. If you’re still alive on this earth then your mission is not over. Every moment is sacred. Every day brings with it another fragment of the bigger picture.

I assure you, Beloved, there is nothing the enemy wants more than for your zeal to subside. Nothing would give him greater pleasure than for you to be deceived into getting sidetracked and giving up on God’s mission for your life. We’ll be taking a look at some of the ways he does this in future posts.

For now, know that if your heart is beating then you still have a purpose. If your heart is beating then there is purpose in the pain, there is clarity in the confusion, there is joy in the mourning, light in the darkness, and hope in the midst of despair. If your heart is still beating than your Heavenly Father who loves you more than you could ever grasp or imagine is working all things together for your good and for His kingdom (Rom. 8:28). Will you join me on this path? Will you dive into God’s Word with me and discover what it means to live the fervent life He sent His Son to die on a cross for? The abundant life He poured out His own blood for? If so, then welcome to The Fervent Life. <3

In future posts we will be exploring things that hinder us from living a fervent life for Christ. We’ll then be diving into God’s Word and asking Him to speak clarity into our perspectives and help us discover what the fervent life looks like. It’s an honor and a gift to walk this path together as brothers and sisters in Christ. Stay tuned. <3