Reigniting Your Passion For God

My guess is, in a crowd this size, half of you need to work less and half of you probably need to work more. We’re all different in our personalities. And you can go to either extreme. Psalm 127 "It’s senseless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, fearing that you’re going to starve to deat;, for God wants His loved ones to get their proper rest." That’s a good verse for your refrigerator door. God wants you to get your proper rest.

Some of you the problem is you’re always giving out. You’re always helping, you’re always sharing, you’re always serving, you’re always working, you’re always being generous. And you never take time to recharge. If you never take time to recharge you’ve got unbalanced on the ministry side, on the work side, you’re going to eventually get compassion fatigue.

What is compassion fatigue? You just stop caring. You don’t care about God any more, you don’t care about other people any more, you don’t care about anything any more. Why? Because you’re burning out from too much work, from too much service. When you care and care and care, eventually you get this compassion fatigue.

Others of you here, you’re the exact opposite. You’re always taking in but never giving out. You go to Bible studies, you listen to teachers on the radio, you listen to tapes, you go to seminars, you go to Christian concerts, you go to workshops, you come to church all the time. You’re always learning, always taking in, always growing in the input. But you’re not giving out any. You don’t have any ministry, you don’t have any mission. You’re not really helping anybody. You’re just taking all this food in getting fatter and fatter and fatter till pretty soon we’re going to have to roll you down the aisle. And that’s where we get the term holy rollers. Some of you are holy rollers. You’re taking in all the time and you’re never giving out.

I don’t know which one is your problem but my guess is one of them is. You either have too much output and not enough input. Or you’ve got too much input and not enough output. You’ve got to decide that. I’m sure God can help you out.

Let me give you a little shock though. Bible study without ministry is extremely dangerous. Because the Bible says in James 2:17 "To him who knoweth to do good and doeth it not it is sin." Do you realize that the more you know about God’s plan for your life the more responsible you are to God for that knowledge. And the more you know, if you don’t do anything about it, you are simply increasing your judgment. You’re increasing your responsibility. Because God holds you accountable for what you know. So the Bible tells that you need both in your life -- input and output. You need work and you need rest. You need balance in your schedule.

What’s the antidote for that? 1 Timothy 4:7 "Take the time and trouble to keep yourself spiritually fit."

How do you do that? One word. Balance. We all know to be physically fit you have to have a balanced diet. And to be spiritually fit you have to have a balance of God’s five purposes for your life in your life. You need to have time to worship with God private and corporate. You need to have times when you’re fellowshipping with other believers. You need to have times when you’re reading God’s word and growing as a Christian. You need to have times of ministry -- service -- where you’re giving out and using your abilities. And you need times of mission where you’re sharing your faith with others.