Word of the Week - Passion
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Luke 10:27
Passion – Passion is how the bible describes God’s love for us. The sacrifice that Jesus made through His death on the cross. We just entered theseason of Lent where we are preparing ourselves for Holy Week and Resurrection Sunday also referred to the Passion of Christ. This is summed up in the most popular verse in Christianity: “God so loved us, that He sent Jesus His only begotten son as a living sacrifice”, so that we can have relationship with Him and have eternal life.” Paraphrased John 3:16 Through this amazing act of love God also gives us the opportunity to be born of His spirit and live the abundant life. So we can be forgiven, renewed and redeemed to our God given purpose and live free and flourishing lives during the short time we have on this earth. This is the amazing and good news!!! So what is our response to this wonderful Passion God has shown us?
God desires for us to worship him with our affections – If we truly love someone or something our love will be expressed. It can be through our actions in terms of how we invest/spend our time and money or our speech in terms of what we like to talk about or share with others, and our lifestyle in how we invest/use our gifts and blessings. These things are typically referred to as our Passions. If there is not an expression towards someone or something then it is questionable if there is truly love present. The book of Psalms, which is the longest book in the bible is a beautiful expression of God’s love for us His children with reciprocating love towards Him. If we are honest, we all enjoy receiving love and affection from others, especially from those closest to us. The word Hallel, which is the root of Hallelujuh means to celebrate wildly, rave, boast and be clamorously foolish in our expression toward someone or something. Like our Pastor Chris Hodges often says, “if you act this way on Saturday at a college football game you are admired as a Passionate faithful fan but if you act this way on Sunday at church you might be considered a questionable fanatic.” God expressed His love for us in a radical manner. If we really understand this and believe God’s Word we should be compelled to respond in a radical manner by loving the Lord with everything in us as our theme verse. Our affections toward God demonstrate our love and Passion for Him. “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord” Psalms 150:6
God desires for us to worship Him with our attention – In our human nature we will give our attention to whatever we love and cherish the most. Think about it, whatever we love the most is what we think about the most and where we invest our time, money and energy. It is what we make thepriority in our lives. The Lord desires to be our “first” love. Just like our family and friends desire our undivided attention, how much more does our Savior and Creator desire for us to give Him our full attention. Our Passion for placing God first and making Him a priority each day is evidence of our love for God.“Seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness and all things will be added unto you” Matthew 6:33
God desires for us to love and worship Him with our abilities – This truly one of my Passions in life, to use what God has given me as a platform for loving and serving others. Early in my life/career, before I came to know the Lord as my personal savior, I saw my gifts, abilities and vocation as simply a means to an end. A way to make a living and acquire things I desired for me an my family. This seems to be the more typical perspective in our western culture. I will never forget how excited I was when I had the revelation that God wanted to use everything, especially my giftings and vocation, as a platform for worship and ministry. We have the amazing opportunity every day to love and worship the Lord by seeing our jobs/vocation/ministry/business as a way to express our love for God. We must recognize that we are worshipping God when we invite Him into our daily work and commit our efforts, abilities and outcomes to Him. This is a game changer and brings an entirely new level of joy and Passion into our lives and our love and relationship with Jesus. It also demonstrates our love and trust for God and others. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as if you are working for the Lord, not for human masters.” Colossians 3:23
So let’s be followers of Christ who respond to God’s amazing love and Passion for us by loving Him with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. By this Passion they will know we are Christians and He will know our love.
-Duane