Enemies of Passion
What a powerful message Pst Mark Connor preached today. He touched on the very subject that I have been thinking about these past weeks. What causes a person with passion to lose the fervour and forget about the very reason why he or she wants to be passionate in the first place? What stifles passion and what puts it out when it used to be burning strong & unwaveringly?
The very first enemy of passion is of course complacency. This is like my previous blog entry about being caught in a rut. Sometimes we have been doing the same thing over & over again until we lose the passion of doing it. We even forget why we are doing it. It's a scary thing because when we suddenly pause to take stock of our lives, we find that we have lost the purpose.
Difficult circumstances that we go through can kill the passion in our lives. Disappointments especially can push us to forget the passion that we had in our hearts and start to focus on the sufferings and the tough parts while we are serving God. I like the example that Pst Mike used - Paul had a thorn in his flesh and he prayed to God to remove it from him. But God told him 3 times that His grace is sufficient for him. Nothing about removing the thorn at all, but just reminding him that no matter what happens, God's grace will see him through. It's such a plain truth. Sometimes we keep asking God to take us around our difficult circumstances so that we don't have to face it. And we even tell God if He loves us, He will remove the pain. But God's ways are higher than our ways. Sometimes He chooses to take us through the hard parts so that we can be stronger. No matter how much we whine or complain in the midst of it all.
An unbalanced lifestyle can destroy our passion. I fully agree with this. What is an unbalanced lifestyle? One that is only focused on 1 aspect in life - that's my definition. It may be work, may be family, may be your relationships, etc. Whatever it is, if we do not have a balanced lifestyle & focus on only 1 that we think is the most important, we will burn out sooner or later. Especially for church staff, it's easy to burn out because we sometimes equate our calling with our work and our ministry and with God. That's when we can forget that there are other things that we need to do in life. Sometimes we may neglect our family. Sometimes we neglect our friends. So it's very important to constantly guard our hearts against this. Otherwise we may come to a point where we feel like we are burning out and we cannot take it anymore.
The last thing Pst Mike spoke about was familiarity. When we become familiar with the things we do, romance can sizzle out. Even the special things can become routine and we lose the passion & fire in it. That's when some people will say to themselves, "whether I am a Christian or not, whether I go to church or not, makes no difference wat.. still the same.." Let's not allow ourselves to fall into that trap.
We always hear this being said. It's not how we begun, but how we end the race. Passion at the beginning is always strong. But can we maintain the same passion and the first love we had for Jesus? Will we always remember how many times Jesus came through for us and how He has blessed us through the years? Will we be able to hold fast to the belief that as long as we don't let go of God, He will see us through the good & bad times?
Friends, let's finish this race well and be a good finisher.
What a powerful message Pst Mark Connor preached today. He touched on the very subject that I have been thinking about these past weeks. What causes a person with passion to lose the fervour and forget about the very reason why he or she wants to be passionate in the first place? What stifles passion and what puts it out when it used to be burning strong & unwaveringly?
The very first enemy of passion is of course complacency. This is like my previous blog entry about being caught in a rut. Sometimes we have been doing the same thing over & over again until we lose the passion of doing it. We even forget why we are doing it. It's a scary thing because when we suddenly pause to take stock of our lives, we find that we have lost the purpose.
Difficult circumstances that we go through can kill the passion in our lives. Disappointments especially can push us to forget the passion that we had in our hearts and start to focus on the sufferings and the tough parts while we are serving God. I like the example that Pst Mike used - Paul had a thorn in his flesh and he prayed to God to remove it from him. But God told him 3 times that His grace is sufficient for him. Nothing about removing the thorn at all, but just reminding him that no matter what happens, God's grace will see him through. It's such a plain truth. Sometimes we keep asking God to take us around our difficult circumstances so that we don't have to face it. And we even tell God if He loves us, He will remove the pain. But God's ways are higher than our ways. Sometimes He chooses to take us through the hard parts so that we can be stronger. No matter how much we whine or complain in the midst of it all.
An unbalanced lifestyle can destroy our passion. I fully agree with this. What is an unbalanced lifestyle? One that is only focused on 1 aspect in life - that's my definition. It may be work, may be family, may be your relationships, etc. Whatever it is, if we do not have a balanced lifestyle & focus on only 1 that we think is the most important, we will burn out sooner or later. Especially for church staff, it's easy to burn out because we sometimes equate our calling with our work and our ministry and with God. That's when we can forget that there are other things that we need to do in life. Sometimes we may neglect our family. Sometimes we neglect our friends. So it's very important to constantly guard our hearts against this. Otherwise we may come to a point where we feel like we are burning out and we cannot take it anymore.
The last thing Pst Mike spoke about was familiarity. When we become familiar with the things we do, romance can sizzle out. Even the special things can become routine and we lose the passion & fire in it. That's when some people will say to themselves, "whether I am a Christian or not, whether I go to church or not, makes no difference wat.. still the same.." Let's not allow ourselves to fall into that trap.
We always hear this being said. It's not how we begun, but how we end the race. Passion at the beginning is always strong. But can we maintain the same passion and the first love we had for Jesus? Will we always remember how many times Jesus came through for us and how He has blessed us through the years? Will we be able to hold fast to the belief that as long as we don't let go of God, He will see us through the good & bad times?
Friends, let's finish this race well and be a good finisher.
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