Daily Devotionals by Ardith Keef

     Is the fire in your heart loosing intensity?
    That means you must come closer to the Master in order to be in the direct path of the bellows - then the flames will leap and roar.
     This does not usually happen during the devotional time, and that is where believers often err - in thinking they should get up off their knees ready to lick the world and the enemy. But that is a time of doing honest business in obedience.
    The devotional time may produce song, intense prayer and refreshment and cleansing from taking in the Word of God - but the blaze in the heart that is felt is the result of meeting with those who have decided to leave all behind and follow Him.
     Why? Because in that meeting is the great mystery of the physical presence of the Lord on the earth.
     If you don't know anyone like that, get a book by someone who was (meaning they are dead now) that way - like Amy Carmichael or a biography of David Livingston. Elizabeth Elliot is still living, but her books will press into your heart with the momentum of one who decided as a young girl to leave all and follow Christ.
     You need to actively take in the thoughts and experiences of those with whom you will spend eternity, and they must be thoughts about leaving the world behind, not thoughts about trying to make it better for yourself.
     When we get to heaven we will look back and see that money given freely was the only money invested. We'll see that leisure and recreation, although worshiped on earth, will appear to have been like a balloon when all the air has leaked out.
     We will see deep channels filled with empty habit and realize we wasted chances to fill them with the treasures of heaven.
     Go for the gold! Seek out Soldiers of the Cross. Sing with them. Pray with them. Labor with them. It is heaven on earth - the Presence of ". . .Him on whose thigh was written: THE WORD. . ."