A Current Kingdom Comment
About 5 minute reading time
Every day the news seems to bring increased anxiety, stronger feelings, more passionate feelings.
In the US, the news is about political polarization, racial strife, and COVID 19. The church is trying to figure out how to navigate COVID protocols. Jesus-followers, Left and Right, are taking their stand, feeling their way is God’s way. Everywhere hot passionate feelings seem to steam! It’s as if it can tangibly felt in the news and on social media and in personal conversations. Sometimes the passion is out of control and violent. At times our passion impacts how we treat others. Or how we feel about others. Or what and how we say things to others. And . . . sometimes our passion may even lead to acts of love and intercession, caring, listening, understanding.
In other countries, many Jesus-followers already daily live in restrictive political and spiritual environments. They too are also trying to navigate COVID, economic hardship, racial strife. In your country, perhaps Jesus-followers may already be living in restrictive hardship–meeting in secret, or having places of worship destroyed, or family-rejection, or homes burned, or leaders imprisoned.
In every corner of the world people are passionate about something. As Jesus-followers, hopefully our passion is God’s passion.
With passion there is cost and consequence. If we are passionate about God’s passion for lost people and lost people-groups and nations, and passionate for God’s glory and exaltation in all the earth, there is a cost. But it is a cost that brings eternal gain. It may come with a kind of temporary loss--maybe loss of comfort, or reputation, or certain freedoms, or employment, or family. Jesus-followers who do not live in the West may already experience this sacrificial cost more than those in the West. If so, anticipate eternal gain.
If our passion is primarily about temporary personal or political agendas, opinions, and things that lead to anxiety, there is another kind of cost. How one displays that passion may have certain temporary inglorious cost-effects. Violence breeds violence. Irresponsible, inflammatory verbalization may lead to restricted communication. Divisiveness leads to division and alienation. Anxiety leads to ulcers and high-blood pressure. I imagine you probably can think of other temporary inglorious cost-effects for passion placed in transitory, non-eternal causes.
In the US, citizens are constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of the press freedom of assembly, freedom to choose our leaders by ballot, even the right to bear arms. Wherever our citizenship, we have freedom to choose what we are passionate about. What we are passionate about shows who we are and what we believe in.
No matter what country Jesus-followers live in, we are citizens of heaven. Yet it is sad that the Body of Christ often has not been passionate about what God is passionate about.
What are the kinds of things that God wants us Jesus-followers to be passionate about?
Knowing God
“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth” (Psalm 46:10).
No matter where we are, no matter what our circumstances, even when we are confused and it feels like the world is falling apart, God is still in control. He wants us to be still, to be at peace, to have our priorities in the right place, and embrace the perspective that our good and loving God is in control. Passionate pursuit of knowing God leads to immeasurable freedom. It is a well-invested passion.
Following Jesus
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?” (Luke 9:23-25).
We are commanded to have the passion of following Jesus. “Anyone.” Die to self “daily.” Daily “follow me.” This is a passion that gives up all to gain everything that eternally matters. It is a well-invested passion.
Being a disciple who makes disciples
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).
The passion of knowing God, pursuing God’s heart, sacrificially following Jesus, leads to a passion being an obedient disciple of Jesus who makes disciples who are also obedient disciples of Jesus. It is an invested passion that reaps the benefit of “I am will you always, to the very end of the age.”
God’s passion for disciples-making-disciples provides promise of his powerful presence so that we can participate in fulfilling his endgame passion. Our participation is a well-invested passion.
God’s endgame passion for adoration from every people-group
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14)
“After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’ All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: ‘Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!’”
God is passionate for his glory to be declared around his throne by those who have been bought by the blood of Jesus Christ from every tribe and nation. God is passionate about our participation in bringing that reality to pass. God is passionate about you and I bringing along as many on-fire disciples as we can to join in that glorious gathering! This is a well-invested passion.
What we are passionate about shows who we are and what we believe in.
Is God’s passion becoming your passion? Is it becoming your church’s passion?
We choose our passion, and in so doing, reveal who we are and what we treasure most.
Who influences your passion? Who chooses your passion? What does your passion reveal?
Chuck Swindoll recently shared a message from Daniel 4 related to our sanity and peace. Nebuchadnezzar was insane until he learned [acknowledged] “the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses (v25)… At the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever.
His dominion is an eternal dominion;
his kingdom endures from generation to generation.
All the peoples of the earth
are regarded as nothing.
He does as he pleases
with the powers of heaven
and the peoples of the earth.
No one can hold back his hand
or say to him: “What have you done?”
At the same time that my sanity was restored, my honor and splendor were returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored to my throne and became even greater than before. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble (34-37).”
Steve, like the true 4 points on a compass, you have wonderfully reminded us of 4 key passions that will direct us through these challenging times. Thank you Brother…