Burning Love

He was the all the rage during the 50s and throughout the early 70s. Elvis Presley had great hits. His early years had him singing church hymns as well as Country and Blues songs. I liked The Wonders of You and Suspicious Minds.
Unfortunately, most every singer who began singing for the Lord, ended up singing for the world. The lure of the world is a mighty strong one. Its riches and popularity are enticing. It’s why Satan used them on Jesus, but he didn’t fall for them like Adam & Eve did and just about every other human since. To follow Jesus and to remain true to Him, takes the strength, guidance, and indwelling/in-filling of the Holy Spirit within us.
Another favorite of Elvis’ songs is Burning Love. See some of its lyrics: “Lord Almighty Feel my temperature rising, Higher, higher it’s burning through to my soul.” It’s a great song and I remember watching a movie with our girls years ago. At the end of the movie, this song played, and as was customary, our girls and my wife would break out in dances. They’d do wacky moves, from spins to bends, to everything they could think of that would produce a great time and a great ending to an enjoyable movie. While the song is great, I can’t help be reminded of another meaning to the words “burning love.”
God really loves us all. We, however don’t all love Him likewise in return. We love ourselves more than love Him. We want Him to endorse all our ways-good and bad. His great love for us cost His Son, Jesus, His life. Because we haven’t heeded His everyday warnings, He has little recourse left but to punish us.
If we grab our expedition gear and dash into our spacecrafts and head to the not-too-distant future, we shall behold a very sad and solemn unfolding picture waiting to happen. The book of Acts tells us in chapter 17, verse 31, “For God has appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness…”
His burning love will be different from that of the song in the sense that He will destroy all we have and know. “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up” (2Peter 3:10). Mankind will continue to push God away and to implement its sinful ways until the day it will be too late to take any of it back. Personally, I prefer the lyrics of The Wonders of You: “When no one else can understand me…you give me hope and consolation…..I guess I’ll never know the reason why you love me as you do…” You have my permission to listen to the song. God can speak to us through just about anything. “Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD…his compassions are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:40,23).
God Bless,
Sam