God Afternoon Family,
I have an ax to grind if you don't mind.
I'm not too fond of the church's current definition of passion.
There is a popular teaching that says in order to discover God's purpose in your life find out what you have a passion for. This in itself is not wrong but the way most Christians define passion goes something like this,
Whatever you love doing or thinking about...whatever consumes you...whatever makes you feel good...that's your passion.
May I say that is an accurate definition for anything that excites the flesh. I love overeating sweets, staying up late and watching t.v., spending weeks at an expensive resort in Maui doing nothing but being waited on, and buying whatever I want at the mall. This is my passion.
There are 3 times the word passion is used in the Bible. James 5:17 and Acts 14:15 use passion in reference to the natural man and his inclination toward fickle emotions, temptations, and weaknesses.
Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. James 5:17 KJV
Acts 1:3 uses the word passion to describe the suffering and death Jesus endured in obedience to the will of His Father.
To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God...Acts 1:3 KJV
The Strong's Concordance defines passion in Acts 1:3 as Sensation or Impression (Usually painful.)
Jesus said His meat (source of strength, satisfaction, fulfillment) was to do His Father's will...even to the point of death. The fact that He wept blood in the garden of Gethsemane and asked His Father to let that particular cup pass from Him, tells me His flesh, in no way, felt good about the suffering He was about to endure. Yet, through prayer, He was strengthened to obey.
In my 14 years of salvation it's a pretty rare occurrence that God tells me to do something that makes me feel good and excites my flesh. Maybe it's just me, but God usually makes me do something I don't want to do. In the long run I'm glad I obeyed but initially I generally find that the will of God for me is not much fun and takes me way out of my comfort zone.
Passion.
There is one thing and one thing only that should satisfy a Christian, that should eat away at us until we are nearly insane, that should consume us until we burn...
To find out and then do the will of the one who died for us...no matter the pain it causes us.
This is passion.
Then Jesus explained: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work...John 4:34 NLT
Stay in prayer and in the Word!
Love in our Lord,
Lauren
