Love Deeper

This is the time of year when love is on everyone’s mind. This may or may not be a good thing that depends on whether or not you are in a couple or single. Today I want to talk about love… a different kind of love.

I want to talk about a passionate love for Christ. We are called to love him. We are commanded to love him even.

Let’s talk about passion for a minute here.

Nothing great is ever accomplished in life without passion. Nothing great is ever sustained in life without passion. Passion is what energizes life. Passion makes the impossible possible. Without passion life becomes boring. It becomes monotonous. It becomes routine. It becomes dull. God created you to have passion in your life and He wants you to live a passionate life. Passion is what mobilizes armies into action. Passion is what causes explorers to boldly go where no man’s gone before. Passion is what causes scientists to spend late night hours trying to find the cure to a dreaded disease. Passion is what takes a good athlete and turns him or her into a great athlete where they’re breaking records. You’ve got to have passion in your life.

In America, its ok to be passionate about lots of things… like

Movies Sports Politics Fashion and clothes Throw pillows you know who you are (if grace is in here) The only thing I can’t be passionate about is God. It’s not pc its offensive.

If you do a google search for “things people are passionate about” you get 116 million results

You can have a Passion for Birds, A Passion for Books, A Passion for Cactus, A Passion for Chocolate (I get that one), A Passion for Fashion, ... for Fishing... for Flying, ... for Gardening, ... Golf, Hunting. There’s even people with a Passion for Mushrooms (those people are smoking them. They are not eating them -- putting them in a salad. They are smoking those things. Take my word for it… Don’t click on those sites.) A Passion for Needlepoint, Pasta, Ponies. There’s even people with A Passion for Potatoes, for Roses, for Shoes. There’s even sights for people that have A Passion for Steam. I can’t figure out what that one’s all about! I don’t know why you’d get passionate about steam.

I can be passionate about anything but my God, my religion, my faith, my relationship with Jesus.

I can shout my head off. I can get excited. I can get hoarse from yelling so loud. When my team loses, I can cry. Nobody thinks that’s a big deal. When my team wins, I can jump up and dance around and wave my hands in the air. If I do that at a game people go, "He’s a real fan!" If I do that in church people say, "He’s a fanatic! He’s a nut case." You don’t want to get too emotional about your faith. Its ok about anything else but not that.

Let’s look at scripture and see what God says we should be passionate about.

Mark 12:28-34

God wants us to be in love with him… so much so that we love our neighbors and we love them so much that they see Jesus in us and turn to him. God wants us to be passionate about him. He wants us to burn with a desire for him that only love can explain. When you are in love with someone everyone around you knows, you are in love… they know you are in love with that person. That person knows you are in love with them.

Do the people around you know you are in a committed relationship with Jesus? Does Jesus know you are in a committed relationship with him?

Revelation 3:15-18 Spit is more like vomit… talk about the diff between hot is what he wants and cold is better for his reputation if you are not passionate about him. Warm is people know you have a relationship with Jesus but you are cheating on him with other things. You are smearing his good name.

Next week we are going to talk about Seven passion killers and what keeps you from having that constant passion for the Lord.