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) “I’m tempted to…” Stop right there. If you are tempted to do something, stop. Temptation is bait on a hook. It’s a lure seeking to get you off track for a short term benefit. It’s ALWAYS a short term benefit that sacrifices long term good. The problem is…that short term benefit can seem SO GOOD. That’s the temptation. The fish looks at the worm, and even though it looks strange, dangling in the water with a hook in it and a line reaching to the sky, still, it looks so yummy! Years ago there was a country song that said, “How can it be wrong when it feels so right?” That’s the problem with temptation. Listen. Temptation ALWAYS includes a cloud of deception. If you let temptation linger, you enter the cloud of deception. You will only see the short term benefit and you will be blind to what you’re really going to get. Jesus put it in construction terms. If we live wit

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Cindy’s fiancé died in a workplace accident. She was a dedicated Christian, but the loss was immense. Her family was worried about her and how she would cope. In her B.C. life, Before Christ, she relied on cocaine. Now that life was in the past. Or was it? One night the pain was so great, she picked up the phone and called her former drug dealer. He said, “Wait a minute. I thought you were some kind of ‘Jesus Girl’ now. I’m not selling to you.” She said, “Look, I’ve got cash. You’ve got drugs. This is how it works.” He said, “Did you know that your dad threatened anyone who ever sold you drugs again?” She did not know that. Then he said, “Cindy, what you need to do right now is get down on your knees and ask God to help you.” She said, “You’re a drug dealer. What are you doing, telling me to pray?” She hung up the phone, more

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “I can’t memorize!” I hear that all the time, and I get it. Memorizing is work. But memorizing is like anything else. The more you do it, the better you get. And memorizing Scripture is different than memorizing some random school assignment you despised. Jesus said His Words are Spirit and Life. God’s Word makes wise the simple. It’s a lamp to your feet and a light to your path. It’s food for your soul. As the comedian said about Pop Tarts, so I say about God’s Word: how do I get that goodness in me? By memorizing. And if you say you can’t memorize, remember that even tiny children with their teeny little brains can memorize. You can do it! As one old timer used to say, “Don’t ask me if I CAN. Ask me if I WILL.” It’s not a question of if you can. It’s a question of if you will. So how do I personally do it? How do I memorize Scripture? One new verse per weekd

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “Don’t say holy cow.” “No, not holy mackerel, either.” “And definitely not holy cra….you know what.” “Look,” I told my grandsons, “Holy is a word. It has a meaning. A serious meaning. To say it any other way is to say it in vain, which means to water it down.” “What does it mean? Well, I think of holy as being separated, like separated from sin. God is separated from sin and He wants us to be separated from sin, to be holy, to be righteous, to not sin.” “Plus, when you say, ‘holy…whatever,’ that’s not what you really mean anyway. You mean something else, like, ‘I’m shocked,’ or ‘That’s amazing,’ or ‘What a surprise.’ So why not just say what you mean instead of using the word holy in vain?” One grandson said, “Because it’s more fun!” I said, “When yo

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “Doug, what’s on your bucket list? What do you want to do before you kick the bucket? Before you die? Before your life is over, kaput, fini, muerto?” All right, well, it’s a short list. In fact, my bucket list can be summed up in one painting by Yongsung Kim, one of my favorites. It’s a wintry scene in the country. It’s a cold but sunny day and a man is out for a walk. In the painting he has stopped walking and is looking up to the sky, as if he’s pondering the weather, or something greater. The man is painted to look like Jesus, in His robe and sandals, with a walking stick. And behind him is a sheep, one solitary sheep. They aren’t moving. They are just standing there, Jesus looking up to the sky, and the sheep looking up to Jesus. The sheep isn’t running off on his own. The sheep isn’t pushing the shepherd to hurry up. The sheep is just watching the shepherd, waiting for him t

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Three losers and one winner, and I want to be the winner! But how? In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus said four people heard the Word, but only one of them “got it.” I want to be one who gets it! He described the first three as being soil where the seed of the Word couldn’t really take root. There were different excuses and reasons, but the end result was the same: no fruit. No growth. No blessing. Then in Mark 4:8 Jesus said, “But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.” Then He said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” Man, I want to be one who hears, don’t you? But how? I want to be that good soil, the best soil I can be, but how? So instead of wondering or thinking about it, I decided to pray about it. I just said, “Father, how can I make myself good soil?” And immedia

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Can you name even one person who lives close enough to God to hear what He is saying? That’s a provocative question, and it comes from Jeremiah 23:18 in The Living Bible. God was talking about the false prophets in Jerusalem, and He said, “Can you name even one of these prophets who lives close enough to God to hear what He is saying? Has even one of them cared enough to listen?” The answer was no, and the result was going to be judgment on Jerusalem. Now the question comes down to us today. Can you name even one person who lives close enough to God to hear what He is saying? That got me thinking about this. What does it even mean to “live close to God”? What would be the keys to living close to God? Here’s what I came up with. Number one: repentance. God is holy and our sin keeps us away from Him, so we need to repent and be forgiven in order to live closer to God. That means we are sorry for our sin

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) I remember going out on Friday nights with high expectations. “It’s going to be the best time ever!” There were high expectations of fun, of making memories, laughter, good times, great music, and stories to tell. But at some point I started thinking thoughts like, “It’s never really all that.” Even in the best-case scenario I began thinking thoughts like, “There’s got to be more.” I didn’t know it at the time, but those thoughts were laying the foundation inside me for something huge. What it did was finally put me in a place where I was willing to respond to God, willing to move in His direction and find out more. So do you find yourself thinking thoughts like, “There’s got to be more”? If so, what’s happening is that your heart and mind are getting ready for a change. You are going seek out something new, and I want to recommend this to you: seek God.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Do this one thing and your life will be radically changed. I call it The Matthew 6:6 Principle. In short it says, “Go into your room. Shut your door. Pray to your Father.” Or I word it this say, “Get alone. Shut out the distractions. Talk to God.” When we do that, Jesus said the Father will reward us. I want that, don’t you? And the great thing is, it doesn’t say we have to be great at it. It doesn’t say we even have to be good or decent at it. It just says we have to do it. Get alone. Shut out the distractions. Talk to God. Matthew 6:6 says, “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” “Okay, Doug, how does this reward thing work, because I did this the other day and nothing happened.” Jesus said the Kingdom of God is like a seed.

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “Someone passed me a joint at Lollapalooza.” That’s what the young man said. He had gone to the big festival in Chicago to check out the scene. “Did you smoke it?” “No,” he said. “I don’t know whose mouth had been on that thing.” Good point. But I was thinking about a bigger point. You don’t know what’s in it. A stranger hands you something to put in your body. What’s a good reason not to? You don’t know what’s in it. And this is true for so many things in life. We make decisions based on assumptions and limited knowledge, but so much of the time, we don’t know what’s in it. Should I go to this school? Should I take this new job? Should I move to that other place? Should I date this other person? We can do our research. We can list the pros and cons, but in end, we just don’t know what all is in it. Think of the young woman s

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Take an apple seed from the next apple you eat. Plant it in a little pot on your desk. How long until you are eating apples? Just guess. You don’t have to be a botanist. A year? Five years? Ten years? Well here’s your answer. Never. You will never be eating apples from the seed planted in the little pot on your desk. Why not? Because it doesn’t matter how great the seed is. It doesn’t matter if it gets the perfect amount of water and the perfect amount of sunlight and it’s in the perfect soil. You will never be eating apples from it. Why not? Because the pot is too little. It can’t grow a proper root base so the growth is stunted. And that’s where your Christian walk might be right now. Stunted. Stuck in a tiny pot. Unable to bear much fruit. So what can you do? You’re gonna need a bigger pot. What does that mean? It means you’re going to have to spend more time with God. In

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “What do you think about those little Christian fishes people put on their cars?” I like ‘em. “Why? Who cares?” Well, here’s why, and I can sum it all up in one word: acknowledge. Acknowledge basically means to accept something and to announce it. I can accept that my wife is a better ping pong player, but if I never announce it, then I’ve never acknowledged it. So this is why I like Christian fishes, and Christian bumper stickers and Christian t-shirts and a host of other Christian things that some people mock and scorn and disdain. I like them because they are a simple way to acknowledge God. When a Christian athlete points upwards in a reverent “thank You,” he is acknowledging God. When a Christian press secretary stands on the podium very purposefully wearing a gold cross necklace, she is acknowledging God. When I go to the gym wearing my “Lean and Clean for the King&rdquo

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “Just give me one thing to do,” she said. We were talking about Christianity and faith in God and salvation, you know, all the basics of the Gospel. She wasn’t sure if she believed it, but she wanted to. I said, “God created the universe, and He created people in His image.” She said, “Okay, I don’t have any problems with that.” I said, “So He created Adam and Eve and put them in the Garden of Eden and they had great freedom, but they had one rule, and they broke it.” She was familiar with the story. I said, “So sin came into the world, and it became a barrier between us and God, because God is holy. So Jesus came and shed His blood and died and rose again, paying the price for our sin, and now through Jesus we can remove the barrier of sin that separates us from God.” We talked about belief and repentance and forgiveness, and she said, “Okay, let’s say I

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) We know we are supposed to love people, but how? Love one another. Love your neighbor. Even love your enemy, but how? Do we just work harder at it? Do we need a new book, “Five Fantastic Strategies for Loving People More in Just Five Days!” I want to propose a new way, a better way, and it starts with this: I don’t know how to love people. Oh, I can think of ways to love people more, but is that really what they need? Are my ideas the best ideas? No. So the question remains. We are supposed to love people, but how? Galatians 5:22 says that the fruit of the Spirit is love. The Holy Spirit will quite naturally bear the fruit of love as we do what it says in verse 16, “walk in the Spirit.” And verse 18 talks about being “led by the Spirit.” So we will love people more when we are led by the Holy Spirit. So how can we “walk in the Spirit” and be “led by the Spirit” in order

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) Fun was my gold standard growing up. Everything was measured by how fun it was. “How was school today?” “Boring.” “How was the birthday party?” “Fun!” “Would you like to go visit Grandma?” “Does she have any new toys?” Yes, it was the old days when we were kicked outside all summer, but I can tell you we weren’t looking for work. We were looking for ways to have fun. That’s not so bad when you’re a kid, but when you hit the teenage years it starts to get a little thorny. I was not a great athlete, but I loved playing sports. PLAYING sports, not WORKING sports. “Okay, you wanna play on the basketball team? Time to run around the gym 500 times.” “What??? Where’s the fun in that?” “You need to get a job.” “Where’s the fun in that?” “You know, you should try to be friends with that

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) You are not your body. You have been given a body to steward. You are not your body. You have been placed by God into a body, and one day soon you will leave that body. You are not your body, and that means your worth, your value, your self-esteem, your identity are not wrapped up in your body. Your worth, your value, your identity all come from our Creator God, our Father in heaven, and He values you highly. Listen to this. America’s founding fathers talked about our inalienable rights. Well, you have inalienable value. Your value is solid, unmovable, eternal as a creation of God, and it doesn’t matter what has happened to your body. You are not your body. You have been given a body to steward. Maybe you don’t think it’s the best body. You should be taller, prettier, stronger, faster, better. Well, guess what. The most beautiful people in the world all wake up one day and look in the mirror and say, “Oh my

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “I want you to do a self-test over the next week.” That was the assignment from our Sunday school teacher Rodney Rowland. “I want you to observe your thoughts and see how much of the time you are spiritually-minded compared to how much of the time you are carnally-minded.” So I did it, and the results surprised me. Here is what I discovered about myself, that many times my first thought on a matter was carnally-minded. In other words, it came from the sin nature, the selfish nature, the flesh, the old man. It was unredeemed thinking. But then the carnal mind was overcome by the spiritual mind. It was redeemed thinking. I would say it was the Holy Spirit rising up within me and giving me truth and light and understanding. That brings me to this Bible verse, Ephesians 4:22, which says, “…put off…the old man…” What does that mean, to put off the old man? “Wait a minute, Doug. I&rsq

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) “Should I take this sandwich home?” That’s what my co-worker asked when I walked in the kitchen and saw the ponderous look on his face. “Should I take this sandwich home, or leave it here for tomorrow?” Instead of answering outright, I gave him a priceless tool for decision-making. I said, “What will you WISH you had done?” He said, “Well, if I get home and decide that I would like to eat the sandwich, I will WISH that I had brought it home.” I said, “There’s your answer. And if you don’t eat it tonight, you can always bring it back tomorrow.” Last week a friend of mine in his mid-forties had quadruple bypass heart surgery. He was a smoker and if you asked him, “What do you WISH you had done 20 years ago?” the answer would be, “Stop smoking, immediately.” This is a powerful tool for decision-making. Ask yourself this simple question, &ld

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) You’ve heard of the Prayer of Jabez? Well, this is the prayer of George. George Bailey, that is, and I pray it all the time. George Bailey is the guy in the classic Christmas movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” His life was going down the drain, and he found himself in a bar one snowy night trying to drink the edge off. Everyone else was preparing for Christmas and enjoying some holiday cheer, but not George. He was on the verge of being arrested, even though it wasn’t his fault, and the pressure was unbearable. So he sat at the bar, and under the weight of it all he finally asked God for help. Now if you’ve seen the movie, you know that it actually starts in heaven, BEFORE George prays his prayer. The preparations in heaven are being made LEADING UP TO George’s prayer. Other people are already praying for George. Heaven is well aware of George’s troubles, and heaven is ready to respond…

I’m Doug Apple...and my heart is on fire. (Luke 24:32) I was never good at fasting. I tried it off and on for years and never had what I thought were good results. I’d make the commitment, “I’m not eating anything from this time to this time. I’m really going to seek God and dedicate myself.” I gave it the old college try, and then would just feel cranky and hungry and scattered. My work suffered. Probably my family suffered, and for what? I saw other Christians fasting, seemingly successfully, but I felt no fire in it, no visitation, no moving of God. That’s not required of course, but to me, fasting felt like a wasteland, without value or fruit. Then we moved to Tallahassee at the end of 2005 and went to a church that declared a fast to start the year 2006 – but it was a different kind of fast, a “Daniel fast.” Surely I had heard of that before, but I don’t recall it. I thought there was just one way to fast, and that was to eat no food, none. So this Daniel fast was a new idea to me, where your