Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Passion Killers II

Passivity / Complacency


Passivity is like being in neutral, not responding to outside force, remaining inactive when acted upon. A passive person has the “whatever will be, will be” attitude, believing they have no significant part in shaping their future or destiny. Complacency is being self satisfied, lacking desire. Both of these conditions will thrive best in a faithless atmosphere. Unbelief is most likely the root cause of passivity. The very nature of faith is change, growth, and movement, just like a fire.

Passion is strong desire, love, fervor, and anger. It is like an unsatisfied fire that will not stop until it has consumed everything. Passivity or complacency would act like a flame retardant, preventing its spread, like throwing cold water on another’s excitement.

In the book of Acts, it was the fire of the Spirit of God that erupted among Jesus’ disciples, which effectively led to multitudes being added to the Kingdom. The spread of the gospel could be compared to the spreading of a forest fire driven by the wind. The early church burned with the passion of the Spirit of God and it grew in numbers daily. Many rose up against the spread of the gospel but it seemed as though the more they tried to swat out the flames, the more it spread.

Passivity can be seen as a safe choice. If we are not sure what to do we choose to do nothing. We can stay out of trouble and preserve a favorable reputation by remaining neutral. There are some countries that choose to stay out of world conflicts and remain neutral, while others will not sit idly by, or look the other way, while injustice occurs. Over the years, the choice to be active and stand up in defense of other nations has proven to be very unpopular. In other words, passivity has become a preferred stance because it doesn’t cost in loss of lives, money, or reputations.

The same can be true for individual believers, as well as the church as a body. World opinion should not be a factor in what we do as Spirit filled, Spirit led believers. The fire of passion for the cause of Christ never has been a popular thing because it is not passive. It will not stay idle while injustice runs rampant across the world. On the other hand, what we do passionately must be led and fueled by the Holy Spirit.

God is love and love is passionate. He is also a jealous God that will not sit quietly by.

2 Corinthians 11:1-3 I hope you will put up with a little more of my foolishness. Please bear with me. 2 For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God himself. I promised you as a pure bride to one husband—Christ. 3 But I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent. NLT

These are very strong and difficult words expressed by Paul. It was God’s passion through jealousy over His bride. Just as Eve had entertained the cunning ways of the serpent, the Corinthian church was entertaining a different spirit, a different gospel and another Jesus. Paul was feeling the jealousy of God over His bride, not because the fake gospel and another Jesus showed up in church, but because His bride was enamored with the imposter. The one who had been espoused to be married to Christ appeared to be openly considering other offers.

There is a Godly jealously and there is a jealously that has been perverted by the world. I have heard stories of husbands who were so insecure in their relationship with their wives that they were always checking up on them and suspicious of any interaction they had with other men. They were constantly questioning the motives of their wives and, in doing so, actually caused great division rather than unity in their marriages. This type of jealousy has even driven men to commit murder.

Anger is another godly passion that has too often gone awry. The scripture says “be angry but do not sin.” Like jealousy, uncontrolled anger can lead to murder. These various passions must be under the control of the Holy Spirit. We do not want to be like Saul of Tarsus, who being very zealous in the Jewish religion of his day, found himself fighting against the God he thought he was working for.

Love is another strong desire that the world has warped the true meaning of. Love is a passion, like a flame that burns within, but if we are steeped in the world’s understanding of love, we see it as a means for getting certain temporary human desires met. The true love from God causes us to focus on giving and looking after the needs of others first, especially our own family. As Christians we know what is of God and what is of the world, but it is not always easy to do things God’s way. The world promotes instant gratification; the church can easily be drawn into the same trap.

My past experience with passions has caused me to take a very cautious approach to life. Without realizing it, I chose passivity as a way to control the passions in my life. For many years I used the passion of anger in the place of a bold authority. As a boy growing, I observed two methods of expressing authority. One was a commanding voice that struck fear into the hearer and the other was violent anger that did the same. Either one got immediate action and the desired results. Though neither of these methods created a pleasant atmosphere, they were my only frame of reference. Since I did not have the booming voice of authority and since anger came to me so naturally, I resorted to anger.

The bible says to be angry but without sin. The trick for me was to know where the sin lie was. Anger seemed to be what worked for me. I got the desired results but they came at the expense of good healthy relationships. Though there is a boldness of God’s authority that can be expressed through righteous anger, I was only familiar with the unrighteous kind. As a Christian, learning how to express anger in a godly fashion has been difficult. The same can be said about love. In the world I learned passionate love in the grip of sin’s lustful desires. As a Christian, I have to learn love by the Holy Spirit and believe that He will lead me and guide me into all truth.

Coming out of passivity means that I must face all these difficult challenges head on. As a Christian I can not stay in a comfort zone of passivity or allow old mind sets to dictate my future. I must allow God to set fire to my life and allow those godly passions, that the world has perverted, to come alive again. I must trust that His fire will purify and cleanse me where the world’s passion flame has defiled and polluted me. I must trust that His voice of authority will be heard in me and that His righteous anger will rise up in me, when need be. I must allow His jealousy for His bride to flow through me, as it did through Paul, that I would not hesitate to communicate the true heart of God for His church in every situation. I must not be intimidated by worldly passions that would try to bring fear to keep me from expressing God’s love for people. I must trust Him to lead me and guide me into all truth.

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