Passion

“Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.”

1 Corinthians 10:31

 

It was 2005, I was holding a summer long internship with the MasterWorks Festival as chief videographer.  My job was to, in a nut shell, record every orchestra, drama, dance and classical guitar performance and it’s connected Master class.  MasterWorks takes pride in the fact that it has some of the best musicians in America as it’s teachers…and students.

 

So you see it was quite a treat for me to simply set up my camera and watch a flawless performance of pieces of work such as the New World Symphony, Les Mis, Canon in D, etc.  What hit me the most was the passion these performances had.  The look and feel of passion of the some of the performers as they played their art.  I obviously connected with that, having similar inclinations in life that were passionate.

 

But I hit a fork in the road.  I could continue to live as I was, down the right paths but not exactly ‘lively’, or to do whatever I did as passionately as possible – even at the risk of burning myself out completely.  I choose to live passionately, because I would rather face burn out or loosing that passion than to live without it and to see the world change and me stay still.  Whatever I’m gonna do…it’s gotta be passionate I told myself.

 

Let me change gears for a moment.

 

Let me say that passion is NOT an emotion.  It can drive emotions of all shapes and sizes, but itself is not an emotion.  You see passion can drive intellect as well.  In one’s search for truth you come across aspects of emotion vs. intellect, impulse vs. thought and wild abandon vs. singular action.  If passion was an emotion it couldn’t drive people like Ravi Zacharias to become one of the smartest and most ambitious of today’s Christian apologists.  You can’t just “feel” Josephus or William Blake.  You have to read them and ‘view the world through the eye with a conscience.’  Although he very wisely interweaves emotion to describe his passion which fuels his pursuit for godly intellect, they are still two different entities.

 

John Piper is probably the forerunner in Christianity today in the doctrine of the Trinity.  The many aspects of the Trinity he brings to light and shares with others passionately.  He is especially big on the glory of God and what that means.  I quote,

 

“It is God’s will that you exalt in the hope of the glory of God.  I say that without the slightest fear of any  contradiction.  The will of God for every person is infallibly that you would exalt in the hope of the glory of God.  Whatever else you do, whatever else you feel; do this, feel this, value this, pursue this, exalting in the hope of the glory of God.  Nothing is more important than this.

 

But it starts with the spiritual perception or apprehension, or seeing or tasting, you have to see it!”

 

In short, God uses passion for you to completely understand, to taste and see, to believe.  Whenever God is revealed to you, it is revealed by passion.  Pouring over holy Scripture endlessly like John Calvin or praying 6 hours a day like Martin Luther shows passion that drove these men to God.  Emotion or intellect alone will not get you there!

 

All finite things can eventually be known.  They can be discovered, examined and memorized.  They can become boring.  Expressing emotion for the sake of being emotional or intellectual pursuit for the sake of intellectual completeness cannot get you through life, because you will find the end of them.  Misplaced or ‘man made’ passion will defuse and burn itself out because it has nothing to sustain it.  That’s why Heaven will never be boring.  You see since God is infinite in all things, we will be constantly finding new beauty and new glory of God every time we see Him, even in a glorified and perfect body.  Eternity will be spent in complete awe and learning of something new and beautiful of God every day.

 

If you are a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you.  The Holy Spirit not only regenerates our souls and gives us communication to the Father through Christ, but it also gives us conscience.  But the most important thing the Holy Spirit will do is to keep a fire that will burn forever in you.  A fire for God.  Passion from God that made you seek Him, passion from God that will never go out, passion for God that will never exhaust.

When you were first saved and started repenting of your sins, your eternal life started.  Your quest and hunger for God was first realized at that moment.  We have already started the Heavenly process of finding out new things of God.  But because we still have fallen bodies and deceitful hearts there are stumbling blocks that keep us away.  That’s where the Spirit comes in to bring you back.  If God began a good work in you, He will finish a good work in you.  God will always come back to you when you run away, disciple you, and put you back on the path.

 

If you have ever asked can this life get worse,

If you have ever asked where God has gone,

If you have ever asked why we lack inspiration in our daily lives, it’s because we have forgotten about the Holy Spirit dwelling within us giving us passion that comes directly from God!  Yes, our life on earth can and probably will get worse.  But it will be of no matter if we trust in God and give Him all the glory!  Yes it seems like God is no longer here, but that’s not because He left, it’s you because you did!  When we can’t ‘feel’ God or ‘know’ God it’s because we are leaning on either emotion or intellect to take us to Him.

 

Only by the passion of the Holy Spirit will bring us to God.

 

John Piper - http://downloads7.sermonindexmedia3.com/17/SID17087.mp3

Paul Washer - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J471VobaZks