Daily Reading for Thursday, Jan. 24: Passion

“And you shall love the Lord your God...out of and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30c The Amplified Bible

Passion = Action. We cannot have passion and be passive. Just as we feel passion, just as passion fuels our thoughts, so too it drives our actions. Think of the image of a campfire. Passion starts out as a spark—an inkling of an idea or a feeling. Then, just as a fire blazes once that spark ignites dry wood, so too, when thought and feeling combine, a mighty result of action occurs. And just like a fire, that passion can be extremely helpful when properly channeled and contained, or it can be extremely damaging when left unattended and uncontained. Passion will drive us to action when our feelings and will cannot. Passion presses us farther, and pushes us higher than we can do simply because we believe or we feel. When we love God with all our strength, we allow our passion for God to be displayed in all our actions, and we take action when love demands it. It is that passion that led Christ is drive out demons, heal the sick, turn out the money changers, and place his hands of blessing on the children. It is that passion that keeps us on our knees, in the race, and on the roads. We go where he leads us, we speak when he tells us, and we serve where he shows us. We love God with every possible fiber of our being because we are passionate about him and his kingdom! We run in such a way as to obtain the prize, and we don’t stop until our last breath.