What good is a fuse without the match? What good is the engine without the fuel? What good is life without the passion that motivates it?
3 Truths About Passion:
• Nothing significant is ever done in life without passion.
• Most winners in life are just ex-losers who finally got passionate.
• The worst bankruptcy in the world is the person who has lost passion.
I bring this month to a close by pulling all the thoughts together that were preached and now light the match that hopefully will ignite the passion in order for us to be the cure for the common church!
Passion makes all the difference if we are going to show compassion to the hurting, stand unashamed of biblical truth, develop relationships and enhance worship to God! Passion will put our legs into action, help us think like Christ and see with eyes wide open.
If I were to get your most trusted friends or family members together and ask them if you are a passionate person in life, a passionate person for God, what do you think they would say?
Do you think you are passionate about God being in your life? Do you think you are passionate about the Bible?
What is passion? “A strong feeling, a great devotion and intense conviction which fuels or motivates us toward compelling action.”
For the most part, much of America is really struggling to be passionate about life!
4 out of 5 Americans feel that they lack passion in their lives. - Harris Poll, 2007
That means only 20% of Americans woke up today saying, “Come on, let’s go for it!”
George Gallop did a survey of 13,000 people in 130 countries. It was a survey of people who used to go to church but no longer do. There were a number of questions in the survey, but one of the questions asked, “What would need to happen for you to return to church?” The number one answer was “See passion in the lives of the members and leaders.”
People want to see a fire, zeal, enthusiasm among Christians that makes going to church meaningful. This is what made Jesus ministry so affective! He lived passionately for others, and He died passionately for us!
As Christians, I’m convinced that passion is commanded of each of us…
Ecclesiastes 9:10 “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might…”
John 10:10 “…My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.” NLT
Romans 12:11 “Never be lazy in your work, but serve the Lord enthusiastically. NIV
Ephesians 6:6 “…Do the will of God with all your heart. Work with enthusiasm.” NLT
May I ask, who was the person or what was the event in life that stopped you from being passionate about life?
The sad part of this is – most of us think we can’t live out passion through life’s journey! Maybe you feel this way today – well let’s drop that thinking and begin develop a mindset that says, “I can live a passionate life for God!”
I love what Albert Einstein said, “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”
Let’s Discover Together:
1. The Problems With Passion.
a. It Can Be Distracted.
Romans 10:2 “I know what enthusiasm they have for God, but it is misdirected zeal.”
My days of riding and training horses passionately consumed me to the point that my passion had turned into an idol!
Dan Kimball in his book, “They Like Jesus, But Not The Church” writes, “It’s as if we have all fallen off a ship, and some of us, through God’s grace, found a lifeboat, but instead of helping others get out of the water, we ignore their screams. We don’t want to get in the cold water, and so we sit around, happy and warm, listening to our CD’s on our iPods and complaining that people outside the boat are making too much noise. Instead, we should be desperately paddling around trying to help others into the boat, where they too can experience warmth, community, and safety.”
LIFEPOINT: Instead of devoted passion for God, too many of us have diversified passion – a little passion here and a little passion there! Before long we are left with diluted passion.
What really fires you up? What ministry do you really feel passionate about? Then devote your passion to what God has called you to and go for it!
b. It Can Be Destructive.
Philippians 3:6 “And zealous? Yes, in fact, I harshly persecuted the church. And I obeyed the Jewish law so carefully that I was never accused of any fault.”
How many have heard of the passion of cultic power over its members! Scientology is now being investigated because of its destructiveness.
How many lives, marriages and families have been destroyed because of misplaced sexual passions? How many businesses have gone bankrupt because of corruption’s passion?
c. It Can Be Demanding.
Mark 8:34-38 “Then He called the crowd to Him along with His disciples and said: ‘If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His Father’s glory with the holy angels."
The heart of Christ’s teaching is found in one word “deny” = to disown, disregard or forsake. Its practical application is to subdue certain passions and bring it under submission to a higher authority.
There is so much that we refuse to give up! And we wonder why we have no passion!
Galatians 5:24 “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.” NIV
2. The People of Passion.
Kay Warren’s story and her passion about AIDS… VIDEO from Bluefish.com
Harold Kushner wrote, “Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power…Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will at least be a little bit different for our having passed through it.”
3. The Possibilities of Passion.
The Possibility of:
• Being an influencer.
2 Corinthians 9:2 “For I know how eager you are to help, and I have been boasting to our friends in Macedonia that you Christians in Greece were ready to send an offering a year ago. In fact, it was your enthusiasm that stirred up many of them to begin helping.” NLT
At the age of 88 and 4 days before John Wesley died, the great Preacher wrote a letter in 1791 to William Wilberforce the one who single handedly stopped the slave trade in the British Empire; He influenced him saying, “Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the oppression of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them stronger than God? Oh, be not weary in doing good! Go on, in the name of God and the power of His might, til even American slavery shall vanish away for it…”
Brad Herzog writes in “The Sports 100” about Jackie Robinson as being the most influential person in American sports, “First there are those who changed the way the games were played…Then there are men and women whose presence and performance forever altered the sporting scene in a fundamental manner…And finally, there are the handful of people whose passion transcended and influenced the American culture…Robinson, to a greater extend than anyone else, was all three types in one.”
Jackie Robinson said, “A Christian’s life isn’t significant except for its impact on other lives.”
• Being an instructor.
Ephesians 6:4 “…Don’t make your children angry by the way you treat them, bring them up with discipline and instruction approved by the Lord.”
It is said that the actor Orson Wells was once asked by a preacher, “What is the difference between the two of them.” The actor appeared before crowds night after night proclaiming fiction and people listened with delight. The preacher spoke of the essential and of the unchanged truths of God yet, most people listened with no passion in their hearts.
Orson Wells gave this stirring answer, “I present fiction as though it was true, you present truth as though it were fiction.”
• Being an intercessor.
James 5:16 “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” KJV
Let’s face it, passionate prayers are powerful prayers! And they are powerful because passion drives our convictions!Live your life passionately and then watch your kids or family get excited about your passion for God!
Walt Disney wrote, “There are 3 kinds of people in the world. There are well-poisoners who discourage other, stomp on their creativity and tell others they can’t do it. There are lawn-mowers, people who are self-absorbed, who mow their own lawns but never help others. And there are life-enhancers, people who reach out and enrich the lives of others.”
Which one describes you?
