Sunday, January 22, 2017

January 23, 2017

"Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord." Romans 12:11

Perhaps you buy into the notion that passion is a spontaneous and intense emotional response to some great spiritual experience or a move of God.

Maybe you understand passion to be something that springs up within randomly or capriciously and then disappears just a unpredictably.

Verse 11 presents a different idea of passion.

Passion happens intentionally, "Never be lacking in zeal", v. 11 a

Like most other things in life, passion happens because someone wants it to happen and does what it takes to make it happen. What needs to happen is zeal. Zeal is a form of passion or even a synonym for it. An intentional decision must be made to be zealous toward the Lord, His Church and the people that make up your local church. You decide that you will maintain the emotional, spiritual, and intellectual commitment necessary to stay zealous for the Lord. You devote body, mind and, spirit to knowing and serving the Lord. You aggressively pursue it or preserve it.

Second, passion happens internally.

Passion is something that stirs within you once you decide to pursue it and possess it. Zeal comes to your mind and spirit as a result of committing them to God's Spirit. It comes from His Word as you hide it in your heart and meditate on it in your mind. Once you intentionally commit to pleasing God, His pleasure fills you from the inside out.

Passion happens in service to God.

Zeal increases as it is expressed by self-sacrificing service. Passion is something you can put your hands around. Zeal cannot be contained. What obedience and surrender allow the Spirit to stir within in you will have to express itself by serving others. Passion that seeks God must also service God.

Passion is a decision. Zeal is a determination to know God, to experience God, and to show God in your piety, your personal relationship to him and your personal investment ministering to the needs of others.

Are you zealous for the Lord? Are you passionate in the Lord?