The question for today: Do I have passion in my life?
When I study the lives of great men and women in history, there is one common denominator I find: passion. When anything of significance was created or battles of seeming impossibility were won, passion was at the forefront. The world system has its idea of passion, which mostly revolves around lust and sexual desire. Unfortunately, this misrepresents the depth of meaning in this word. There is passion that is positive and even necessary in life. We were designed to have passion (strong, COMPELLING emotions/feelings) in:
Our relationship with God the Father
Our relationship with our spouse
Our relationship with our children
Our pursuit of what we were created to do in life (career & areas of service)
We have been made in the image of God, who Himself is passionate about His love for us. So much so, He gave His only Son to bring us back into relationship with Him.
“For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.” John 3:16 (AMP)
That’s passion! And like our Father, we were created to have passion in our lives; it is within our very core.
The problem is that life can throw us a curve and cover that passion with apathy. Each one of us faces forks in the road due to life moments like a broken relationship, a parent or friend saying hurtful words, the loss of a love one, or a moment of injustice. We have to make a choice at that point: to continue a life of passion, fighting through the circumstance and pursuing God’s best for us and others OR to settle for a life of apathy, continuing on without our fight, completely numb to what once stirred our hearts.
In John 4, Jesus is a great example of a person of positive passion. Jesus takes the road less traveled—literally—as He purposely travels through Samaria, disregarding the cultural and religious barriers of the time. Filled with passion for humanity, He ministers to a woman who is viewed by others as worthless. As He does, He discerns that her own passion has been pointed in the wrong direction. By speaking the truth to her, He stirs up the right kind of passion in her, introducing her to the living God. Kindled with the right kind of passion, she spreads the message that touched her to the entire city, and many come to know Christ. The right kind of passion changed the entire community for the better. Notice: a person of passion will always leave a legacy.
So ask yourself: Is my life filled with the right kind of passion or am I walking down the road of apathy? The good news is that the road of godly passion can always be found through a passionate relationship with the Father. So focus on that relationship, and leave a legacy that only positive passion can.
Stay strong!
Tags: dreams, Eric Raftery, Liferaftonline, passion
