And His Eyes Were As a Flame of Fire
“…And His Eyes Were As a Flame of Fire.” Revelation 1:14 KJV
This scripture caught my attention some time ago, and I had a few thoughts I believe were from the Lord on this text. First of all, what is Passion? I can tell you it’s easier to be passionless than to have passion. When it comes to serving Christ, it’s very hard to have passion without purpose. Passion and Purpose walk hand in hand. Many people will leave church, even if it’s all hyped up with great music and preaching, if they don’t find purpose for their life. Passion without purpose will just wear you out!
Passion is lust. Lust in the Bible does not always denote something sexual or sensual. Lust simply means intense desire. “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth,” Colossians 3:2 KJV. Set your affection. Order your passion. Maybe you are of the “Super-apostles Club”, but most days I don’t fall out of bed with Holy Ghosts utterances on my lips. Passion is more about an inner joy that expresses itself outwardly. Now, I have a problem. It seems for weeks or months I can have this natural love for God and His word, and then something hits me and I walk around singing “The Thrill Is Gone”. Once I was waiting for the thrill to come back and the Lord said, “Eric, why don’t you do the opposite of what you feel. Shout now, dance now, rejoice now.” Consider that the Kingdom’s gear system is opposite of the world’s. “Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations,”
James 1:2 KJV.
1. Count it
- Consider, view it, understand it. If you don’t see it this way you won’t get it.
2. All joy
- Raw joy, pure joy, an unedited joy, natural joy. If your light bill
is $100 and you have $20, you need faith for $80. If your light
bill is $100 and you have nothing, then you need raw faith.
3. Fall
- Trip, stumble, or just an issue of life. Fall means that
sometimes you may not be the single cause of the present trial. You just fell into it.
4. Divers temptations
- Many, legions, assorted. The root of the trial can be from any angle.
To the natural mind, this text broken down sounds illogical, but it is pure truth. Pure doctrine leads to pure joy.
“A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come:
but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world and ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you,” John 16:21-22 KJV. If you don’t have children you really can’t understand what this scripture means. However, if your marriage will continue to be filled with passion you will. When a woman who has longed for a child first discovers she has conceived you cannot take the smile from her face.
This joy is pure and full and cannot be removed, she thinks. This same woman in her final month of pregnancy turns miserable wishing she could only be delivered. Her feet swell, her face swell, she’s extremely emotional, can hardly sleep at night as she bares heartburn and misery, etc. She does everything in her power to cause herself to go into labor, including everything the “experts” tell her to do such as, “walk till you can’t walk anymore”, “drink a ton of water”, etc.: NONE of this is her answer. Her hour finally comes, she twists in pain, and the child arrives. The tears on her face suddenly mean a totally different thing. NOW she understands pure love, unnatural love, raw joy. Her spirit outruns her mind as she is consumed with her child. She will die for this child, fight for this child, and even if this child has medical problems she is passionate about it.
You say, “I don’t feel anything. I’m trying but I don’t even feel like I love God. I’ve lost the flame of my first love.” Well, I say to you try the unnatural approach. Get up tomorrow morning and before your flesh shouts like a taskmaster, out of your spirit begin to tell God how much you love him and let your feelings catch up later. This is what it means to “set your affection”.
Who among us is filled with passion? Hunters will buy deer urine in a bag. Musicians will write to the wee hours of the morning and ‘jam’ for hours. Fishermen have more ornaments than a Christmas tree for their fishing expedition. People are passionate in 2008, over cell phones. I am afraid of the last days Christian. I’ve noticed a casualness and a dangerous laziness among laity and leadership. Members who have positions in a church seem to be extremely comfortable. They will laugh at all the funnies in a sermon, amen the breaking of the bread but never get up and run to the altar. Every cavalier Christian who went on to backslide can connect their backsliding to one thing, they lost their first love by taking their EYES off of Christ. I’ve heard that the apostle, John was boiled and placed on the Island of Patmos and had a revelation of Jesus Christ. He was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day and heard behind him a great voice. He turned around and saw the Son of God walking in the midst of seven golden candlesticks, which were the seven churches of Asia. His appearance was as follows; clothed with a garment down to the feet, a golden girdle, His head and hair was white like wool, feet like brass, and His eyes were as a flame of fire.
Think about your life, marriage, or home and find the flame. Is it gone? How do I keep my passion? Hebrews 12:1 and 2 teaches us to lay aside every weight and the sin, which easily besets us. And let us run with patience the race that is set before us. LOOKING (fixing, focusing, starring) to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. CONSIDER HIM that endured! What joy? Is a cross joyful? The joy wasn’t the cross, but redemption. However, the redemption was in the cross! Now you can lay aside every weight, every sin, and run with patience. Yet,
if you don’t fix your face you won’t win. Analyze His pathway to joy
and see the Passion of the Christ. Observe and then apply what you see in Jesus! Have you seen someone just glaring into nothing! You’re talking but you know they don’t hear you. You can be gazing at the risen Christ and never focus. Hear me reader, grab your eyes and your vision will come back. You can tell a lot through the eyes of a person.
Detectives are usually able to tell when a criminal is lying. They usually look around. Why? The eyes are the window to the entire man.
It’s hard to look or focus in a person’s eyes who you’ve wronged.
Usually people forget names, but faces stick. Passion is the result of one who is gazing, fixing, or staring into the very eyes of Christ with an unnatural approach.
When I get to Heaven the test of citizenship should be this. When you see Jesus Christ face to face, will He see the same fire that’s in His eyes in yours? I don’t care about the crown line or mansions. I want to look upon and fix my eyes on the man that brought me through it all.
I want to see my reflection in his eyes, because that’s where I find my “real self” anyway. I want Him to see his reflection in my eyes.
I write these entries for anyone. I truly love you reader, and thank you for taking the time to read this. May God put the fire back in your eyes. Get your passion back today. It only takes a small match to start a big fire! Lord, I love you with an unnatural love!
P.S. If this word blessed you, then let us know by e-mailing us at info@ericclarkonline.org.
