refusing to let your heart grow cold

Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.

Matthew 24:12-13

God never makes bloodless stoics; He makes no passionless saints.

Oswald Chambers

When you read the Bible, certain words can jump out at you in certain seasons of your life. This happened to me recently while reading Matthew 24. 

It was the word MOST.

Jesus said that because of the increase in wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. In this context, "most" refers to the majority.  

While everyone is talking about how culture is making us anxious, few are talking about how it makes us indifferent. Wickedness works on the heart to shut love down, and it’s working well.

We live in a world that normalizes sin. What was once renounced as deplorable is celebrated as normal.

Violence is entertainment.
Making love became porn.
Hatred is expected.
Division is normal.
Cynicism is everywhere.

It feels like the whole world has become the Howard Stern show.

Maintaining love for Jesus is hard when this comes at you thousands of times a day. It can make you doubt your convictions and numb your devotion. 

We can become like the Psalmist in Psalm 73...

"Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and have washed my hands in innocence."

I don’t want wickedness to weaken my heart. I don’t want sin to suffocate my devotion. I don’t want to be in the cold-hearted majority. I want to be in the burning minority.

I am at war with a heart that grows cold.
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Last week, I had the honor of a Zoom call with an author I have admired for almost twenty years. He is in his sixties and has sold millions of books.

He is incredibly well-known in evangelical circles and writes in a way that resonates with my heart on a primal level. 

At the start of the call, he suggested we pray and invite God's presence to be with us. What happened next caught me by surprise. 

Through the screen, I could feel God's presence emanate from him and touch my heart. It was an experience that is hard to explain, but I could feel God coming out of him.

This man has navigated many of the things that dull the heart. 

He has fought off the delusion of success, responded graciously to critics, ignored controversy, and got on with the task of discipleship and formation. His is a heart that is strangely alive.

As we spoke, I was struck by his passion for Jesus, anger at Satan, compassion for people, and hatred for sin. The more he responded to my questions, the more I found one rising in my own heart.

How can I have a heart filled with passion like this when I am in my sixties?

How can I learn to love the right things, hate the wrong things, and burn in such a way that younger men rally to me to warm their cold hearts from the evil of the world?
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The Moravians are one of my redemptive mentors from history. 

If you don’t know about Count Zinzendorf, Herrnhut, the 100-year prayer meeting, or their impact on missions, you owe it to yourself to learn more. (The Lord of the Ring: In Search of Count von Zinzendorf and Christian History Article: Zinzendorf & the Moravians)

They were full of burning passion that still touches the hearts of those who hear about them today. One of their best practices was an idea called "fending off lukewarmness."

Zinzendorf knew that the time to stir the heart wasn’t when it was fully dead but when it was in the earliest stages of decline. He wanted his people to guard their hearts and fight the first sign of lukewarmness as it crept into their hearts. 

We need a new movement of men who will fend off lukewarmness. We need a movement of men who refuse to let wickedness produce heartlessness.

Porn is bad because it dehumanizes women and deforms your desires, but its most harmful effect may be the least talked about. It robs you of passion for Jesus.

Greed is bad because it makes objects into idols and chokes out the Word, but its most harmful effect may be that it robs us of passion for Jesus.

Power is a temptation for us all, the delusion of having others under our control. But its most harmful effect may be that it robs us of passion for Jesus. 
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I am at war with wickedness. The more it increases around me, the more I pursue the beauty of Jesus.

I refuse to let wickedness produce heartlessness. 
I refuse to have a cold heart. 
I refuse a mediocre version of my faith.

Oswald Chambers says, "God never makes bloodless stoics; He makes no passionless saints."

By God’s grace, let us never lack zeal, guard our spiritual fervor, and fend off lukewarmness together.

Here’s to a burning majority who refuse to let their love grow cold.

Thanks for reading,

Cheers.

Jon.