Are You Hot?

“But His Word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones.” (Jeremiah 20:9)

The producers at ABC recently score a hit with the TV show Are You Hot? about the search for America’s sexiest people. God also has the same question for us, but we don’t need to have that buff or sexy body to be considered hot in the kingdom of God. The normal temperature for humans is 98.6F or 37C, and anything above or below is considered to be abnormal or indicative of sickness, disease, or infection.

Just as it is with the physical, so is it in the spiritual. In Revelation 3:15, Lord Jesus chastised the Church at Laodicea for not being cold nor hot for Him. In Romans 12:11, the Apostle Paul referred to this as being fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Both Jesus and Paul were discussing the high temperature or intense zeal that should typify our wholehearted affection in serving God. Imagine water or metals being so hot as to boil or bubble over.

With such intense fervor, we should diligently labor for God with our giving, forgiving, tithing, preaching the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15), and making the most of every opportunity that comes our way. What actually keeps us burning for God is the Word hidden in our hearts like Jeremiah’s fire shut up in our bones. In Jeremiah 23:29, God identified His Word as a raging fire that has the power to consume, soften, enlighten, harden, or purify. “Is not My Word like a fire? says the LORD.”

The two disciples who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus said one to another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32) They discovered that the Word of God inflamed their hearts with such spiritual power, energy, and zeal that caused them to become more determined and focused in their walk with God. Like Jeremiah and the two disciples, David wrote in Psalm 39:3 while meditating on God’s Word that his heart became hot.

It is God’s will that all of us be on fire for Him, but this is possible only if we feed our spirits daily with the Word of God and allow the Holy Spirit to pour the anointing oil on the flame in our hearts. Just as there is a holy flame in our hearts from the implanted Word of God, there is also an unholy flame stirred up by the flesh, the world and the devil that is marked by anger and wrath.

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