Keys of Sincere RejoicingSample

Passion

The word passion implies a 'strong feeling or emotion.’ Rejoicing flows from a life lived with unbridled passion. It is living out loud from the depths of the heart. In sincere rejoicing in the Lord, we cannot leave out the passion that causes us to go beyond the imaginable.

We can see a good example of how passion works every Sunday at soccer games. The spectators get excited, shout, jump, and applaud as if they were playing the game themselves. We see them do all kinds of things to let the whole stadium know who their team is. And if their team happens to win, they proclaim the news for weeks.

Passion does not depend on your temperament; you can be a passionate extrovert or a passionate introvert. It has more to do with the heart’s desire to want to get everything there is and not stop until you get it.

In the book of Psalms, we find that David tells us to cry out to the Lord and to dance before Him as he did. In the Second Book of Samuel, David showed his passion for God when dancing before the ark. His wife Michal belittled him. He responded that he would continue to dance and become even wilder if he needed to do so before the Lord. We need that kind of authentic passion! That passion will drive us higher and higher. It will make us forget about what people may say about us as we choose to extravagantly worship our Lord, who gave His life for us and paid the price of our redemption.

Passion will drive you to seek more and more of God and to worship Him with all your heart, strength, soul, and mind. That could be the moment when God answers our prayers or reveals to us the passage we did not understand from the Scriptures. When God sees our passion, it causes Him to desire to manifest His presence in our midst, and miracles happen. Hearts are touched, people are healed, and the chains of slavery are broken and fall from our hands.

Lord, I ask You to stir up the passion in me to worship You, cry out to You, seek You intensely, and see Your presence manifest in my life.