“DID NOT OUR HEART BURN WITHIN US?”

By Michael Finesilver

“Stan” is a resident of our condo community and over the last few months I have developed a friendship as we play pool together at the clubhouse. This Tuesday Stan, who is my age, mentioned to me he had attended a Christmas pageant at a local Baptist church. (It is to be noted that in the past I gave Stan a copy of Isaiah 53 in Hebrew, since Stan can read Hebrew.) He had been impressed with the excellence in which the pageant had been produced and told me how the actor portraying Jesus was lifted up by ropes “into heaven”. From there, Stan asked “Michael, do you think Jesus was lifted into heaven?” Not losing a beat, I explained that after Jesus died and was raised from the grave, he stayed forty days, appearing to His disciples and many others, until He was “translated bodily” into heaven where He now reigns and will return to judge the world at the end of the age.

The conversation then turned to sin. Stan explained that when he was younger he attended Hebrew School, attended synagogue, and basically was an observant Jew. “But now, I’ve fallen away,” he confessed. I referred to Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Also, I told Stan that the Bible says “the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.”

Wednesday morning while praying for Stan, the Lord impressed upon me what is written in Luke 24, verses 5- 32, especially where verse 32 says, “ And they said to one another, ‘Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?’” I copied the passage on the printer and asked the Lord for a divine appointment with Stan. Not usually going to the clubhouse in the morning, I went and there was Stan! When Stan observed “Michael, you’re not usually here in the morning!” I was able to explain that I came specifically because God had shown me something He wanted Stan to see. He listened as I shared what God had impressed on my heart that morning and I then gave him the Luke 24 scripture. At the end of the conversation, Stan left with the scripture in hand. He also said it would be nice to sometime soon get together, him and his girlfriend, with Mimi and myself. “Maybe we could talk more over a pizza.”