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A Prayer for Keeping Our Affections for Jesus Hot

     Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love. (Eph. 6:24) But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. (Jude 20-21) Because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Matt. 24:12-14

     Dear Lord Jesus, for many of us, it’s been pipes-freezing-cold lately—a state of weather that makes your warning about the state of our hearts quite relevant. In fact, this Scripture brings to mind the last line of one of my favorite hymns, the great hymns…

“Should I fainting be, Lord, let me never, never outlive my love for thee.” That’s my earnest, impassioned prayer, Jesus—to not outlive a vital, hot, transforming love for you. I don’t fear losing my salvation. I’ll stand firm to the end because of my standing in grace and rootedness in your love. I’ll never be “un-born-again”, but loving you less, and other things more, is real possibility.

What could be worse than for my love for you to cool down, degree by degree, as I get older? Don’t let that happen to me, Jesus. Never let me get “used” to the gospel and don’t let me lose my awe of being yours. I don’t want to finish the race with an ingrown, chilled, status quo heart.

I don’t, and won’t, put any confidence in my love for you, but only in your great love for me. I love you, Jesus, because you first loved me and gave yourself as a sacrifice of atonement—as a judgment-exhausting propitiation for my sins. And now it’s impossible for you to love me more than you do right now, and you’re committed to never loving me less. Hallelujah, many times over.

Holy Spirit, breathe upon the embers of my heart, and re-fire the love I first had for Jesus, when I was brand new in Christ—when nothing else mattered. Come, Holy Spirit, come in fire and power. Make the beauty of Jesus unavoidable and the love of Christ so compelling in my life. So very Amen I pray, in Jesus’ kind and powerful name.

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