Keeping Passion Alive
Week 17, Monday
Lori Frank
Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. Matthew 22:37-38
According to the dictionary, passion is “a barely controllable emotion.” Jesus stated that loving God passionately is to be the believer’s number one characteristic. Passion is an all-consuming obsession with the object of its affection. It dominates one’s feelings, desires, dreams, and actions.
Revelation 2:4 says the following about the church at Ephesus: “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.” Its passion for God had waned or gone tepid. Jesus had a strong and harsh reaction toward believers in this condition. He wanted to spit them out. It made Him nauseated.
The key to keeping passion alive and burning hot for God is found in Jesus’ greatest command: To love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Loving Him with all our hearts is the result of submitting to the filling of our spirits with the Holy Spirit. Pure and holy love is the fruit ultimately born of this process. Loving Him with all our souls is to lay our own will, personality, and emotions before His lordship and surrender them to His control. The end product of this is that we begin to exemplify the character of Christ in our daily lives. Distractions like anger, cynicism, and pride are replaced with proper focus on and adoration of God’s perfection and glory. Loving God with our minds can come only through realigning our minds with the absolute truth revealed in God’s Word. Meditation on the character of God revealed in Scripture renews our minds.
All of these spiritual exercises must be done with unrelenting purpose, and with all our strength. In the believer who desires to obey, God will develop a deep drive to pursue knowing Him. He helps us press on. The more we know Him, the more we love Him, the more like Jesus we become. This is the cycle that changes us from glory to glory. It keeps our spiritual passions burning bright and ignites us to shine for Him.
Lord, Your Word instructs me to love You passionately. Love is a fruit of Your Spirit. I submit my heart to You and surrender to Your control. I turn from my sin and ask You to fill me today. Replace my fear, pride, and distraction with trust, humility, and focus. Consume me with love and let me pursue You with all I am as I walk with you today. Amen.