Passion

What is your passion in life?   Ask anybody and you get a myriad of answers.   You might passionate about history since you think it is important to remember where we have been.  Or adoption!  You think there is nothing better than finding a child who needs a home and family, and giving it to them.  You might have an artsy bent so you are passionate about creating things.   Welding, wood-working, cooking, writing -- or just creating anything!  Heaps of people are passionate about music evidenced by the number of song downloads each and every minute.   I know of someone who has a passion for cats.  Don't know why, but her home is full of cats - she simply cannot have enough cats.  What is your passion in life?

In my current series of articles I am exploring the eight quality characteristics of healthy churches identified by NCD (Natural Church Development).   I have already looked at empowering leadership and gift-based ministry.   Today I like to explore Passionate Spirituality.   'Passionate Spirituality' measures the extent to which people -- with commitment, fire, and enthusiasm -- pursue an ever-deepening experience of God.   NCD has discovered that if church members are passionate about their relationship with God, there is a increased capacity for their church to be healthy.  And healthy churches tend to be growing churches.

What does this passion look like?   Well, when I read the Bible or when I read history I am drawn to men and women who have this yearning for more of God, more of Jesus.   People who have a passionate pursuit of God. They have this yearning – an angst-filled yearning for God – ever reaching for more of God.  Consider David in Psalm 63.  He writes:  "O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water." (Psalm 63:1) - David is not saying, “I want to be a better guy.”   He is not even saying, "I want to understand you better."    Matt Chandler describes these words of David as “a violence, a lust, an active soul-deep desperation.”  David is crying out, “God, I’ve got to have You.”   David goes on in this Psalm to admit:  "I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.   Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.   I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.   My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you." (vv. 2-5)  This echoes a passionate pursuit of God -- knowing that having God's love in his life is better than life itself.  

We see this passionate pursuit of God repeated elsewhere in the Bible.  The sons of Korah compare their longing for God "as a deer pants for streams of water." (Psalm 42:1; see also Psalm 84:2)   The prophet Isaiah confesses: "My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you." (Isaiah 26:9)  Or as we read in Psalm 119:  "My soul is consumed with longing for your [word] at all times."  (Psalm 119:20)  Here we see a passion for God that does not end.   Day and night.  At all times. 

If passionate spirituality has to do with an enthusiastic pursuit of experiencing God, what are the markers of this in the local church?  You will see people committed to the devotions of prayer and reading the Bible.   Like the early church, “They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching, the breaking of bread, and in prayers….” (Acts 2:42)  Not only do church members engage in prayer and Bible reading, but they find these Christian disciplines enjoyable and inspiring.   My prayer journal encourages me daily to not just read Scripture, but meditate on it, and pray through the thoughts, desires, needs and feelings that come from my personal reflections.  These times are there for me to enjoy the presence of my Lord and Saviour and there find rest.   As David experienced in his times with God:  “I have stilled my soul, hushed it like a weaned child. Like a weaned child on its mother’s lap, so is my soul within me.” (Psalm 131:2)   The results of this passionate pursuit of God is evidenced in people through changed lives, shared testimonies of God's goodness, and increased enthusiasm for God and his people.   Leaders who engage in a passionate pursuit of God are spiritual examples to others.   And spiritual transformation begins to spread throughout the culture of the congregation. (see Romans 12:2)

Do you want to grow in your passion for God, your passion for spirituality?   There are no shortcuts.   It takes time -- time with God!   My passion for my wife Jeannie did not happen overnight.  Through the early months of our courtship, and the many  later years of spending time together, talking, praying, laughing, crying -- my passion for Jeannie continues to increase.   As I remind her from time to time, more than yesterday and less than tomorrow.   No matter what some might say, absence does not make the heart grow fonder.  Separation does not increase love.   Oh, absence or separation might underscore what you are missing, but only through spending quality time together in each other's presence do love and passion increase.

So what is your passion in life?  What is the passion in your church?   For you to be healthy as a believer, and for your church to be healthy in gospel impact, there needs to be an ever-deepening pursuit of experiencing God.  And experiencing God will result in a growing passion for God.