One day a man walks up to Jesus and he says, "Lord, what’s the most important thing in the Bible?" And you know what the Great Commandment is. Jesus said, "I want you to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. Nothing matters more than that. That’s the number one thing in life. I want you to love Me passionately."
Nothing else matters in life if you don’t love God passionately. God doesn’t want you to love Him half-heartedly. He wants you to love Him with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength. I love the paraphrase of that verse, Mark 12:30, from The Message "Jesus said, ’Love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy."
The word passion in Greek, is the word "heart." God is saying I want you to put some muscle into it, put some energy, put some emotion into your relationship with Me. Don’t be a wimp about your relationship with Me. Don’t be namby-pamby. Don’t be half-hearted. Give it all you’ve got.
Jesus is saying, "If you’re going to follow Me, you’ve got to go it with passion. You’ve got to give it some oomph, some spark, some zip, some enthusiasm, some zest. I want you to live passionately." In fact, this truth is all through the Bible. The Bible tells us that we’re to seek God passionately. We’re to love God passionately. The Bible says that we’re to serve and obey God passionately. We’re to trust God passionately.
Then as if you didn’t get the message, in Colossians 3:23 He says "Whatever you do, do it with all of your heart as unto the Lord and not unto men."
He says I want you to do everything passionately when it comes to loving Me, serving Me, living for Me. Here’s the amazing thing. In America it’s ok to be passionate about anything except God. That is not politically correct -- to be passionate about God. I can be passionate about movies. I can be passionate about sports. I can be passionate about politics. I can be passionate about fashions and clothes. I can be passionate about restaurants (and some of us really are). But I cannot be passionate about God. That’s a no-no.
Romans 12:1 "Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor."
Keep the fires going in your life. Notice, it’s not automatic. It’s a choice. It’s a discipline. It’s something you must maintain. You are not by nature passionate about God. It’s something that you must choose to do. You get distracted and everything in life conspires to keep you from being passionate about God.
So He says keep your passion going. Keep the fires going. It’s a discipline. It’s not just automatic.
Rick Warren gives SEVEN PASSION KILLERS and what keeps you from having that constant passion for the Lord.
1. An Unbalanced Schedule
That means either if you’re overworked or you are under worked you’re going to lose your passion for life and lose your passion for God.
2. An Unused Talent
An unused talent will cause you to lose your passion for life and your passion for God.
1 Peter 4:10 says "Each of you has been blessed with one of God’s many wonderful gifts to be used in the service of others. So use your gifts well."
3. An Unconfessed Sin
This is a big one. Few things rob us of joy, rob your confidence, rob your passion, more quickly than guilt.
1 John 1:9 says "If we confess our sins He [God] can be trusted to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
4. An Unresolved Conflict
Conflict just drains the passion right out of you. Do you ever start a day and it’s going to be a great day -- you know it.
Job 5:2 "Resentment destroys the fool and jealousy kills the simple."
Job 18:4 "You are only hurting yourself with your anger."
5. An Unsupported Lifestyle
Sometimes you lose passion for God because you’re not spending time around other people who have a passion for God. You’re not spending time around other Christians. You’re not getting any fellowship.
I love this incredibly practical verse in Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, just common sense from the Bible. "Two are better than one... because if one falls down his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!"
We need each other. We all fall sometimes. We all stumble at times. So we all need people to help us up in our lives.
6. An Unclear Purpose
When you forget the purpose of your life that is a sure way to kill your passion for life and for God. If you don’t know the purpose for life, why bother? Why get up in the morning? Why put forth the effort? Why get out of bed? Life without purpose is activity without direction. It’s motion without meaning. Life without purpose is trivial, petty, and pointless. Passion and purpose go together. When you have a clear purpose it’s going to give you a lot of passion. But it’s got to be God’s purposes for your life. If you’re only living for yourself, that’s a pretty dinky purpose. That isn’t going to make you very passionate.
7. An Undernourished Spirit Will Kill Your Passion.
Every day you face all kinds of circumstances that conspire to shrink your spirit and shrivel your heart. You’re going to get up tomorrow morning. You’re going to have distractions and disappointments. You’re going to have conflicts and you’re going to have changes and challenges. You’re going to have problems and pressures. You’re going to have frustrations and fears and failures and fatigue. All of these things fall in on you to shrivel your heart and shrink your spirit. So you must intentionally nourish your spirit. If you don’t do it nobody else is going to do it for you. Nobody else is going to nourish your spirit. So if you don’t take the time and trouble to do it, it’s going to shrivel up. I pray that your passion for God will increase today and that you will fall in love with Him over and over with a fresh and new love.
No comments:
Post a Comment