PASSION!
Sounds like the start of a great love story right?
When our passions and desires are aroused within, we can find ourselves outside a place of reason, discernment, and making wrong decisions that will affect not only our future but the future of others. Anger and frustration coming out of our lives are harmful and wound our children and our own hearts. What will you do with your anger or this passion that “so easily besets us?”
Our passions and emotions are where we get all the action that fuels our decisions and our desires to do good and to win a race, to win a war, to rescue someone from a burning vehicle. All our passions can be good. These passions motivate us so they can be very helpful…..such as….you’ve been procrastinating about doing something because you had no passion to get it done. Maybe you’ve been putting something off to the point of even neglect of your own health or others needs.
One day all of a sudden, you get a call from your dear Aunt Susie and she is coming to visit. Wow! you haven’t seen her in 8 years. Your house is a mess, you are a mess. Then reality hits, you haven’t really cared about living life like you used to. Aunt Susie was always the one that patched up your bloody knees after a battle with your skateboard…..she helped you with your homework when mom wasn’t available. She even allowed you to have slumber parties at her house when mom had to work nights. Are you kidding? I can’t let her see me like this! Too late, Sister! You are in it up to your elbows. Now what do you do? You somehow realize that all the passion for life has been lost. You ask yourself, “what happened to me? Where did my desire to be who I really am go?” You recall several years back when hubby left you for another woman, remembering brings a sting of rejection and a tear to your eye. But through the last few years, you have realized your mistakes you made with your relationship and saw your own disappointment with him, and instead of bringing passion out from yourself, you tried to make him see his own faults when he was blind to it. Bad move, right? He just took your “encouragement” as complaining. So in reality, your own drive for life had kinda just lost its luster. Passion was certainly lacking in your marriage. He found a younger, maybe more passionate person to make him feel young again.
Passion! is it really necessary? Yes, it is necessary, but it must be put in the right perspective and place before it makes you productive instead of becoming counter productive.
I just read a story about a “hero” who heard a lot of commotion outside his home while watching a football game. He saw his little old neighbor sitting in her normal place in her rocking chair, front door open and house aflame. Without thinking he barges into the flaming house grabbing up Mrs. Smith, but they don’t make it to the door, till they both are caught by the heat of the flames and they both go down. Ms. Smith died, but our hero, sustained deep burns over 80% of his body and took him months in the hospital, spent weeks in a coma, but he pulled out of it. It took passion to run inside her house to try to save her. He is still alive and looking forward to playing one day with his grandchildren and walking again. It took some passion and determination to say “I will live and not die.” Would he ever think about not trying to save the little old lady who was already engulfed in flames?” Maybe, maybe not. He didn’t even think about the situation and how deeply aflame the house was. He just moved. Passion can help and passion can hinder…..we are called to be light and love. What are you using your passion for?
What are you saying or doing about your own life today? Is there passion in your relationship with your Lord and savior Jesus? Is there such hum-drum days that you don’t really feel like getting out of bed? Are you able to fast, pray and seek his will for your lives and the lives of those around you and becoming more and more sensitive to Holy Spirit as the days pass? I remember a line from one of Keith Green’s songs, “Jesus rose from the dead, and you can’t even get out of bed.”
Well, Aunt Susie may not be coming, but Jesus is. He said,
For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants[a] and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents,[b] to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.[c] You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Passions can run high, but we must make sure daily that our passion for Jesus exceeds and over-arches any passion we have for the desires of the world or distractions. What are we doing with our talent we have been given? Will we be found wanting when we stand before the judge?
Are you wanting to walk in faith? Me too! How can we combine our prayers and thoughts and actions together to change this sin-sick world so that we can love one another? We don’t want to go burying our talent in the ground…..trembling when we have a sudden brush with death or when we stand before him and decision is made: it’s our time to go. Did we do everything we could to make a difference? What did we “put off?” What did we “Put on?” The bible says to “put off the old man” and to put on the new man in Christ, which is our new nature of love and kindness to others. “Let us love one another.” We all ask this question: How do we put on Christ, by putting off the old man. That’s it! Just let go of your own desires at the time you want to be first, at the time when someone cuts in line and you find yourself irritated. Instead of standing there fuming, you offer to pay for her groceries. That’ll shock her.
Judge not that ye be not judged” We certainly have to remember we are not the judge, for sure. So with that same judgment we will be judged. Jesus was so upset at the Pharisees when they would “strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.” So it is very critical for us to walk in love, meaning in the spirit. Judging is akin to being a Pharisee. Remember what Jesus called them? A den of vipers! White washed tombs! Open tombs, that appear all beautiful on the outside but are full of dead men’s bones.” WHEW! Sounds a bit judgmental doesn’t it? Well, He always called the shots like he saw them….and he had all authority to do so as he was actually God in the flesh. There are those that would like to debate that last statement, but I have chosen, in my own life, that statement to be factual, but that’s okay. I hope you can forgive me if I’ve offended you. I’m just the messenger and speaking from the word of God. I’m just learning to wait on God and let him live through me as he has brought back the Holy Spirit in His place to live inside us. It’s a Wonderful Life….like the movie, right? No, not that kind of life. It’s called “Life more abundantly!”
Life! Oh, You know! The life That I “now live in the flesh I life by the faith of the son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me” That life! Everlasting Life, Abundant life! How can I live that life? One moment at a time as my son as reminded me, One moment at a time. As you continue to talk to Jesus, one moment at a time telling him you don’t really feel like doing the dishes or going to the store or going to see that person in the hospital and praying for them. You don’t really feel like letting them have the last word, because they always have the last word and I always feel like I’m picking up the pieces of something that just got broken….when they are just peachy-keen. So why do I always feel like I’m chopped liver and nothing I say really matters, just shut up and agree with me. Hmmm…???? I get off the phone and almost cry again. I have had so many conversations with this person and always feel like this when we hang up. Why? She doesn’t respect me! That’s it! So I think about it a bit more and start talking to myself. e …..no, it’s you that is in the wrong…..but why? I do feel wrong, but not sure why? The father speaks: You must not desire respect only to give it…..not seek to be understood, but to understand. Ah HA! So I am wrong again. Can’t I ever get this right? Yes when you give up your worldly passions to be accepted, loved and worldly desires, then it won’t bother you anymore. Why? Because you are not of this world. You can then let the other person have the last word, because they need it and because you “see” your error, you do not. Very simple! To him who knows to do right and does not do it……it’s called “missing the mark” or in the words of a more faithful and serious disciple then I, it’s called sin.
So if you find yourself out of passion for life, remember it’s more than likely because you have forgotten your “first love.” In Revelation 2 the writer speaks about our “first love.”
‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place, unless you repent.”
” Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and HE will lift you up.” So it might be a great idea to consider going back to find your first love, Jesus. Then you can turn from living your own life and having your own way, and He can then bring your passion back for Him, AND life. Abundant life! A life worth living! A life of love and truth and integrity before Him.
So here is food for thought, “listen to Me continually, I have much to communicate to you, so many people and situations in need of prayer.” He wants to train us to act on a moments notice, by setting our mind upon Him and Him alone twenty-four hours a day, tuning out distractions with the help of the Holy Spirit. He calls us to walk with him with a holy trust, simply responding to his unctions rather than trying to make things during the day fit into our plans. He died to set us free from the self life….the life of seeking our own pleasure or living for ourselves. Planning is great in it’s own box, but today I speak of letting go of compulsive planning. When our mind is spinning with a multitude of thoughts, we cannot hear His voice. Offer those passions and desires up to him and ask Him to control your thoughts so you can be obedient to the Spirit’s leading. Remember that you are not in control and if you plan everything out like clockwork you might be found embracing idolatry, by putting things above listening to the unctions and direction of Holy Spirit. Listen, wait and receive life in abundance…..in Him!