I want to talk about passion. In today’s culture, when we mention passion, it’s usually about sex and lust. Pornography is rampant and displayed in Hollywood, on social media, internet. It is more about lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes( 1John 2:15-17). Satan has taken passion for God and perverted it. Turned passion into idolatry. The worship of self. However, there is a godly passion. Passion that can exist between a husband and a wife as God created it to be in the marriage covenant. People can also be passionate about their careers, sports, and hobbies. Many times to their own hurt. In other words, they place these things above God and family.( Matt. 6:33). The Bible expresses King David’s passion for God in Psalm 63:1-5 (NKJV)1 O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water.2 So I have looked for You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory.3 Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips shall praise You.4 Thus I will bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.5 My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, And my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips. The Apostle Paul echoes the same passion for Jesus: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. Philippians 3:10–11. To know God is not just head knowledge but experiential heart knowledge that comes through fellowship with God.
King David was not a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination, yet his hunger for God was the thing that lifted him above everyone else and made him “a man after God’s own heart.”( Acts 13:22). Passion can be powerful, especially when directed towards God. It has the power to transform into true godliness that which is acceptable to God. Our passion for God should lift us above the natural world and give us a heavenly perspective when dealing with life, knowing that “greater is God in us than he (the devil) that is in the world ( 1 John 4:4). After all, we are seated wiithChrist in heavenly places ( Eph 2:6). Colossians 3:1-3 (NKJV)-1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. It is simply not enough to know about God. We must know God intimately. It takes quality and quantity of time. “It is not so much a man’s journey that defines him, but his destination, and David’s destination was God.” David was not searching for just a better life. He was searching for God. He was not looking for recognition, acclaim, or possessions.
“A person is known by the passion that drives him day after day through thick and thin.”The important thing to keep in mind is that whatever keeps me away from God is my enemy, and only the power and the Word of God can overcome it. The trouble today is that we do not recognize the enemy and, in some cases, have even drawn him out to be a friend. Apostle James drives the point home: James 4:4 (NKJV)-4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Here is what Apostle John says: 1 John 2:15-16 (NKJV)-15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.16 For all that is in the world–the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life–is not of the Father but is of the world. Isaac Watts puts this question before us: “Is this vile world a friend to grace, to help me on to God?”
God created us with a passion and a zeal ( Prov. 23:17 NKJB) for himself, and it was the fall of man in the garden of Eden that hijacked that passion and brought man down to the level we find him today. Only through redemption—accomplished by Christ dying on the cross and rising the third day—can we be brought back to that place of fellowship with God, which should be the passion of every human being, especially a Christian. We were created to have fellowship with our creator God! I like what John Wesley’s mother said, “Whatever weakens your reasoning, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes away your relish for spiritual things, in short, if anything increases the authority of the flesh over the spirit, that to you becomes sin, however good it is in itself.” Nothing in this world will in any way feed our passion for God. We must leave the world behind us and press on to know God in His arena. It is not a matter of getting closer to God. He lives in us! We don’t have to look any further. We need to recognize that we are in Christ, and His Spirit lives in us(Gal. 4:6). It is a daily consideration and acknowledgment that God is ever-present with us. Let us be thankful for that. It was Saint Augustine who really understood this and wrote in his Confessions, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.”
We must realize that God is Spirit(John 4:23-24). We are spirit beings. We have a soul and a body.(1 Thess 5:23). We worship God in spirit and in truth. This requires faith on our part. Faith is our response to the grace of God, who invites us into His presence at any time we want. This is our top calling in life. 1 Corinthians 1:9 (NKJV)-9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. This is our purpose in life. We must keep the fire of passion burning just as the priest in the Old Testament kept the fire burning on the altar (Lev 6:9, Lev. 6:12). I admit there are times when we don’t feel passionate about our walk with God. We struggle to read His Word or pray at times. Life in all of its challenges can cause us to get our eyes off of Jesus. Our fleshly carnal self can get the best of us. We can get sidetracked or get lazy. We can allow unforgiveness and offenses to rob us of our zeal. Yet our spirit always desires to seek God passionately. We need to stir up the gift of God. This can be done in several ways: Maintaining a worship life of praise and thanksgiving. Apostle Paul told Timothy in the “Last Days” that people would be unthankful (2 Tim 3:2). To be filled with the Spirit continually( Eph. 5:18-21). Having a teachable and submissive attitude. To fellowship with God through His Word. To be with people who love and are excited about God. Finally, having a passionate prayer life of talking and listening to God. This includes praying in the Spirit, praying in that heavenly language that Apostle Paul talks about. ( 1 Cor 14:1-4, Jude 20).
In closing, Jesus is our example of a passionate walk with God. He was zealous for the things of God( John 2:17). Throughout the gospels, we see Him speaking of His relationship with His Father in heaven, especially in the gospel of John.( John 5:17-18 and John 10:30) John 17:20-23 (NKJV)-20 “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word;21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. Over a hundred times, Jesus mentions “Father” in the gospel of John. This represents the closeness, unity, and passion of Jesus in walking with God and doing the Father’s will. The passionate Christ lives in us! Let’s keep the fire burning!
In Christ’s Love;
Brent and Linda Bushen
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