Because of Christmas!

Because of Christmas I have a saviour, healer, deliverer, high priest touched with the feelings of my infirmities. Christmas is more than a manger, more than a tree, more than a feast, it is more than presents – it is salvation, healing, deliverance!

If our greatest need had been information, God would have sent us an educator.
If our greatest need had been money, God would have sent us an economist.
If our greatest need had been technology, God would have sent us a scientist.
If our greatest need had been pleasure, God would have sent us an entertainer.
But our greatest need was forgiveness. So God sent us a Saviour!

Passion

Mark 12:30
[30] And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

The creative force behind all great art, all great drama, all great music, all great architecture and all great writing is passion.

It was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) who said “Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion”. I agree – in my 31 years on this planet anything great I have seen achieved has always been achieved by passionate people. Passion is the energy of life and makes the impossible possible. Passion is that thing that gives us a reason to get up in the morning and go, "I’m going to do something with my life today”.

The Olympics are always an exhibition of passion. It is passion that drives a good athlete to become an exceptional or great athlete where they go to levels that no human being has ever been. At the 2008 Olympics we saw the talent of Michael Phelps. It takes some sort of passion to reach those heights. I don’t think I will ever see a comparable athlete in my lifetime – if I do….i hope it’s an Australian!

Passion is a powerful thing! It is passion that mobilises an army into action. It is passion that caused the explorers to boldly go where no man had ever gone before. It is passion that causes scientists to stay up all ours of the night trying to find the cure for a disease.

God created us with the emotions to have passion in our life and I believe He wants us to live a passionate life. Mark 12:30 is definitely talking about passion. In fact it commands very clearly what our passion should be. The object of our passion must be God! This entails loving Him, loving His word, obeying His word (“if you love me keep my commandments”), sharing His passion – I could go on and on – but our passion must be God!

If you wonder why it is hard to live a Christian life – then I suggest you examine what you are passionate about. Nothing is hard if you are passionate about it! It was Jesus Christ’s passion for us that led Him to the cross.

The Apostle Paul was a great example of passion. The apostle Paul wrote: “Whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view if the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:7-8). Oswald Chambers says of Paul, “He was recklessly abandoned, separated by God for one purpose - to proclaim the Gospel of God.”

Here’s the amazing thing. Today it is ok to be passionate about anything except God. That is not politically correct -- to be passionate about God. I can be passionate about movies. I can be passionate about sports. I can be passionate about politics. I can be passionate about fashions and clothes. I can be passionate about restaurants (and some of us really are). But I cannot be passionate about God. That’s a no-no.

Colossians 3:23 says "Whatever you do, do it with all of your heart as unto the Lord and not unto men."Help us to have a passion for God!”

Romans 12:1
[1] I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Notice the Bible says “ye present your bodies”. It’s not automatic. Notice it is “a living sacrifice” - that is total abandonment – that’s passion!

Do you know what the worst sin is for Christians? It is not adultery. It is not murder. It is not some sort of sexual perversion. God tells us in Revelation 3. He says it’s lukewarmness. No passion. A lack of passion and love for God will cause you to do all those things!