Daily Encouragementنموونە

This is the question which Cleopas and his companion asked each other after the Lord disappeared from their sight as he broke the bread at Emmaus. We envy them their burning hearts.

The presence of the living Christ and the opening of the Scriptures caused that fire to burn. No doubt they knew the text, but they had not seen it glow with such glory before. They believed that the Scriptures testified about Christ, but never before had he appeared so clearly to them on the sacred page. They were not just swept along with emotion. Rather, Jesus himself “opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures” (verse 45).

The same blessed combination - “the Spirit of the Lord” and the Scriptures opened by him - will cause our hearts to burn today. Have we not known it in some measure in listening to preaching “with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,” or perhaps in preaching ourselves or in meditating upon a biblical text?

“The Bible is never the end in itself,” says Harold St. John. “The Word, yes, but not the Word only - always the Word with the Spirit.” So we pray:

Come, Holy Ghost, for moved by Thee
Thy prophets wrote and spoke;
Unlock the truth, Thyself the key;
Unseal the sacred book.