Starting fires

My favorite theme verse for years has been the St. Irenaeus quote "The Glory of God is a man fully alive". I still love it. I hunger more deeply than anything else to help ignite an unquenchable fire in the hearts of the people I work with. Christianity is way too full of boring Christians who obey the rules, but do little to start fires.

Everything that matters is stored in our hearts. It is the center of the fire that burns inside, and it is from that heart that we learn to live authentically and passionately. It never surprises me when people talk about their struggles. I think struggles become a clever distraction from really living the adventure of faith. We struggle with sin or self or purpose rather than stepping boldly into the future taking a necessarily tight hold of Papa's hand, daring to trust that He IS, that He leads, and that we are not powerful enough to completely screw our lives up if we are walking with Him.

For many years I guess I bought into the whole 'Its about living a righteous life' thing. Now I find myself irresistibly drawn to starting fires - igniting the tinder of all that I believe God calls us to be. I don't think living righteous is ever an appropriate goal. Jesus needs to be our goal - knowing Him , walking with Him, daring to trust Him, learning to know His voice and His leading. If we focus on Jesus, righteous living follows. But it doesn't work the other way around. Pursuing being righteous doesn't get us Jesus. The fire has to be about Him, not us.

I love a quote from Ray Bradbury's book Fahrenheit 451. I will modify it here to make a point.
"I hate a Roman named Status Quo. Stuff your eyes with the wonder of Jesus, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world, walk with Jesus every step in that adventure. The journey is more fantastic than all the good works could ever buy. Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal. And if there were it would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day, sleeping its life away. To hell with that - shake the tree and knock the great sloth down on his ass."

We need to live our faith that way - radical and ready to go wherever He might take us, more interested in being alive than we are in being right or secure or accepted. We need to light a fire that ignites others to the way of Jesus. We need to live unquenchable lives that seek Jesus at all costs, even if that cost is making mistakes or being wrong or being totally consumed in the process. There is simply no excuse for boring Christianity!