My Heart Is On Fire by Doug Apple - a short Christian devotional to open the Scriptures and make your heart burn within you!

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire! (Luke 24:32) Here is a simple prayer you can pray anytime, for anyone, starting with yourself. Four simple words: turn Thee unto me. Turn Thee unto me. Yes, that’s the old King James English, and it’s pretty simple. It’s a simple prayer saying, “Lord, please turn towards me.” And when the Lord turns toward us...well imagine a shepherd surrounded by sheep. Then imagine the shepherd turning his attention specifically to one particular sheep. He kneels down. He cares for the sheep. He loves on the sheep. He checks on the sheep. A sheep never feels more loved and secure and KNOWN than when the shepherd turns toward that particular sheep. And that’s what this prayer encapsulates. “Lord, turn Thee unto me.” It’s asking for God’s specific attention, for His specific favor and care and love and mercy. It’s asking for His guidance and wisdom and light. It all comes when the Shepherd turns Thee unto me. So you can pray this for yourself, just like David did in Psalm 25:16. Or you can pray it for others, anyone and everyone! “Lord, turn Thee unto my brother.” “Lord, turn Thee unto my sister.” Lord, turn Thee unto my boss and my coworkers and my pastor and my church.” “Lord, turn Thee unto our president and our senators and congressmen.” It’s a powerful prayer, and it doesn’t require a bunch of words, because there is an eternity full of power in this one simple prayer. “Turn Thee unto me.” God bless you, today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire! (Luke 24:32) He covers Himself with light, as with a garment. He’s wearing a robe of...not white...but LIGHT. A robe of light. Psalm 104 says it, and let that sink in for a minute. The Lord our God wraps Himself in light. I don’t know if you’ve ever studied the properties of light, but they are amazing. And if you think God created light when He created the sun, moon and stars, think again. In Genesis 1:3, on Day One, God said, “Let there be light.” Then He didn’t create the traditional sources of light until DAY FOUR. It’s impossible to imagine this, because when it comes to light, all we know is light that comes from a light source. But when God wraps Himself with light as with a garment, it’s not because a spotlight is on Him. It’s not because He is wearing a garment full of light bulbs like some crazy Vegas show. He is wrapped in pure, total, original light. The kind of light that came before the sun, moon and stars! And it’s like nothing we’ve ever seen, or even can see! First Timothy 6:16 says that God dwells in unapproachable light. And remember that light includes gamma rays and X-rays and radio waves and microwaves. It’s shooting out photons of energy, and no wonder “no man can approach!” So when Psalm 104:1 says God is clothed in majesty, don’t think of purple robes and shiny baubles, but think of this. God robes Himself in light. God bless you, today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire! (Luke 24:32) The ink is going to run. If you don’t think of that, you’re going to make a bad newspaper ad like the one I’m looking at. The words are white, surrounded by color. I’m sure it looked good on the computer screen, but they didn’t think about the end result, so the ink bled into the small, white letters making them impossible to read. When you design a sign, don’t start on your computer screen. Go out and stand where the sign will be posted. Start at the end and work backwards. One local church spent the money and posted a beautiful billboard; but I guess they didn’t go look at the site. The billboard was surrounded by trees, but what did they do? They made the billboard green, too! This is great advice in so many areas of life: start at the end and work backwards. I want to grow old and live out my days with the wife of my youth. I knew that the day we married, so looking at that end helps me make wise decisions today. Parenting – wow. My end was that I wanted my children to grow up and be self-sustaining adults, contributing to society, and having their own relationship with Jesus; so I made my parenting decisions with those end results in mind. And our own lives. How do we decide what to do each day? What do we value? What gets our time and attention and resources? Start at the end and work backwards, and the end I’m thinking of is the judgment seat of Christ. Romans 14:10 says, “For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” So how are you planning your life? Start at the end and work backwards. God bless you, today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire! (Luke 24:32) How to Read Medieval Art. That’s the name of the new book I picked up at the library. How to Read Medieval Art. So you mean there are hidden messages and clues in the art, like a mystery? I’m in! Give me that book. Then I read something very interesting in the foreword, which was written by Thomas P. Campbell, the director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s also known as The Met in New York City, it’s the largest art museum in the United States, and it’s among the most visited art museums in the world. In the foreword he points out that much of medieval art is based on biblical themes. Now listen to this. He wrote, “To modern readers and museum visitors, the narratives of the Judeo-Christian tradition may be as unfamiliar as those of Egyptian gods.” Wow. So here we are, with more Christian publishing, more Bibles, more books, more media, more websites, more preaching, and probably more churches and evangelism than ever. And yet medieval art with biblical themes requires special explanation, similar to what we need to understand long-defunct, ancient Egyptian gods. Can that be true? It may be – partly because a chunk of the people hanging around at The Met are probably not prone to be in church this Sunday. But even among church-going Christians, studies show a plunge in biblical literacy, especially among younger people. Well, we can’t change the world, but we can make sure that in our homes and families, and in our churches, we are providing the education and teaching and biblical training that’s needed. If we don’t, the truths of God are going to seem as mysterious to coming generations as some ancient Egyptian god. God bless you, today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire! (Luke 24:32) Have you heard of the dynasty of King Jeroboam? No, because it never happened. Oh, it SHOULD have happened. The dynasty of Jeroboam was foretold by the prophet. In First Kings 11:38, it was Ahijah, the prophet of Shiloh, who told Jeroboam that God was going to make him king, and that God would give him a family dynasty...IF he would listen to the Lord’s commands and do what was right in God’s eyes. And you know what? That’s what I want to do! It’s my heart’s desire and my prayer. “Lord, I want to listen to Your commands. I want to walk in Your ways. I want to follow You, Good Shepherd, every day!” And that, my friend, is how you build your family dynasty. You establish your family dynasty on the foundation of God and His ways. Look around and see. Families that put God in the center and walk in His ways – those are strong families. They aren’t riddled and pockmarked with divorce, adultery, abuse and neglect. So how are you doing with your family dynasty? The good news is that, even if your family is a garbage heap up until now, you can change that starting today. Start following God, walk in His ways and you will immediately begin to see the foundation start to firm up beneath you. But poor Jeroboam. He decided to ignore the prophet. Some of the saddest words in the Bible are found in 1 Kings 12:28. After seeking advice, Jeroboam made two golden calves. He took the promise of the prophet and chucked it. No dynasty for Jeroboam. But we can build a rich family dynasty!...when we seek the Lord with all of our heart and desire to walk in His ways. God bless you, today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire! (Luke 24:32) Are you drinking the Kool-Aid or the living water? I mean, where are you getting your values? On what foundation are you building your life? Are you plugged into TV all day? Is your favorite news channel like an IV pumping Kool-Aid into your veins? Is it soap operas? And you know that show you’re binging on is basically a soap opera, right? That’s why you can’t stop watching. But all these things impart values and morals. Our books. Our novels. The people filling our news feeds. The click bait. We keep going back to the same sources and drinking the artificial...but colorful!...Kool-Aid. Meanwhile, we have an amazing source of living water – the Holy Spirit of God who lives inside every Christian believer. (John 7:38-39) Living water – it’s a spiritual spring, teeming with life! It’s the Spirit of God inside of us, flowing within us...but we have to tap into it. We seek God in prayer and praise and Bible study, and we tap into His living water. We draw near to Him, and He draws near to us. (James 4:8) Then He shows us things, ways to live, attitudes to adopt; and when we do, He establishes our lives on a firm foundation. In the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapter 7, Jesus said that when we hear His teachings and do them, we are building our lives on a solid foundation. Sometimes people accuse fired up Christians of drinking the Kool-Aid. On the contrary. The world is sucking down the Kool-Aid like a maniacal third grader. And even Christians can fall for the cartoonish colors, shovels of sugar and short-lived satisfaction. So stop with the Kool-Aid. Instead, let us run to the living water, clean and refreshing and satisfying! God bless you, today. I’m Doug Apple.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire! (Luke 24:32) Yes, yes, yes, I know I’m supposed to love people...but how? I think we all know that if we are on our way to Jericho and we come across a beaten man, we’re supposed to load him on our donkey and take him to the inn, right? Like the good Samaritan. But life is full of people and their drama, full of neighbors and friends and strangers and people we like and people we don’t like so now what? We’re supposed to love them...but how? First let me note that love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. (Galatians 5:22) So the more we let the living water of the Holy Spirit flow in our lives, the more we will love people, automatically. And the more we quench and grieve the Holy Spirit by our own sin and selfishness and disobedience and laziness, the less we will love people...automatically. But I’m getting to a prayer we can pray, and this has really set my heart on fire. Philippians 1:9 says, “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.” So that’s my prayer. “God, please give me that depth of insight into how to love people, each and every one of them.” I’m a father of four adult children, all married. I need to love them in different ways than when they were 5, 7, 9 and 11. What do I say? What do I give? When do I act? When do I offer my insanely wise advice, and when do I keep my big mouth shut? To love them well I need depth of insight! The homeless man on the corner, or at least he says he’s homeless. See how I am? I need depth of insight! And so I pray, “Lord, please, I love You so much, and to love all these people You bring into my life, I need to abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.” Amen. God bless you, today. I’m Doug Apple.