Experiencing the Passion by: Debra Courtney

Imagine you were one of the disciples who witnessed Jesus’ time on earth. You spent several years following Him around Galilee and Judea. You hung on His every word. You came to believe that the hopes of an entire nation rested on this one man’s shoulders.

Then came Good Friday-except, for you and the rest of Jesus’ followers, it was viewed as anything but good. Your leader was dead. All your hopes and dreams for God’s people would not be fulfilled. Your passion faded as you witnessed the body taken from the cross and laid in a borrowed tomb. Your thoughts turn to the past 3 years of supernatural happenings that unfolded before your very eyes that have now been dashed upon a cross. You hardly can catch your breath. You sink down in a locked room in bewilderment to the thoughts and what you have just witnessed and you grab your head and to wrestle with the pounding thoughts of what have I been doing for the past three years with this man of Galilee. What could you have been thinking?

What happened to the passion He always talked about?

What about the words of passion he spoke when he talked about that Kingdom that He discussed during lunch on the side of a mount.

What happened to the idea of becoming passionate fishers’ of men?

Where did all that passion go? Surly this is not how it all will end.

I imagine we all would have some of the same thoughts going through our mind if we were with the disciples during that time.

But… we know that was not how it ended.

Christ did rise from the dead, and we get to see that His passion was a sign of a new season He was entering into. Because of this we get to be in on what His passion did for us and we get to enter our own new seasons of passion.

Let’s look at how PASSION makes the difference

PASSION Is Magnetic. What we love to talk about, look at, listen to, read about and on and on are a clue to what you are designed to do.

PASSION Is Power. Jesus had a passion for His mission and goal in life. Significant success comes with what consumes you.

Protect the PASSION.  Stay focused. Don’t let anyone or anything distract you from the purpose God is birthing inside of you.

PASSION Is Unforgettable. Jesus focused on doing what he saw His Father do and say what His Father said. He followed His Heavenly Father instructions. He came to restore the blind, the lame, the sick, the battered, and the possessed, to restore and repair their life to full fellowship with His Father. Exactly what Adam and Eve gave up in the garden?

PASSION for the WORD. In His presence you passion for Him will grow from a tiny acorn to a huge oak tree within you. Meditate on it day and night, for then you way will be prosperous, and then you will have good success. (Joshua 1:7-8)

Find something that consumes you. Something that is worthy of building your entire life around. It may be small in the beginning, but, if what you do is what you love look for extraordinary success.

The PASSION that Jesus showed during this Resurrection time is so amazing to me. I want to live that PAASSIONATE life that he lived continuously all my life.

Debra’s life goal is to inspire and motivate women globally to become all they have been created and designed to be by using the guiding principles of their Creator’s word in gaining wisdom, understanding their designed-given personality identities & create their purpose!

Your Opus - By Debra Courtney

Burlington Free Press

 "...your voice is unique, and it is sweet to God's ears." Song of Songs 2:14 

Any woman who has the courage to believe in her music “Opus” (her work) inside her will write the music for her orchestra, but must to turn her back on the audience to conduct the instruments that brings HER VOICE. "Neglect not the gift that is in thee..." 1 Tim. 4:14.

This is really a word that speaks to me and rings true to who those who know who they are and who’s they are and what their “Opus” their work is. But some of us don’t. 2013 was a mixture of breakthroughs, delays and contradictions for many of us. Like the noise of an orchestra tuning up.

 If we want to orchestrate heavens symphony we must be willing to turn our back on things and some people on the earth. Sometimes God puts His people into a thing called “transition processing.” It is a place where we go into our own “wilderness transition” so we can find GOD’S VOICE and FIND OURS! I have experienced this “transition” even all the while being surrounded by people. Have you?

It takes courage for us to believe in the music, the “Opus” inside us, the instruments that we bring together and surround ourselves with so we can conduct the symphony we need to hear, and to be faithful to write it out accurately so that others can hear it also. 

When we are true to the one thing that we alone were created to do, we tap into an inner strength, not in and of ourselves, but an inner helper, an inner comforter, what could be called a “Spirit of Truth” that we are doing the right thing, even when nobody around us fully understands where we are at. This “place” of being is the most powerful in the world. It is an aspect of “God Speaking” out through the uniqueness of His design as he created us that we are exhibiting.

DESIGNED for PURPOSE and DRIVEN by PASSION

If driven by purpose without passion our work (our Opus) is average and never the best. If driven by passion without purpose, we are pleasure seekers (sensualist). If driven by both, we are a creative force in a uniquely designed universe waiting to cooperate with us and to bring us all into all that we were designed and destined to be.

I like what Steve Jobs said, “To design something you really have to get it! Be passionately committed to thoroughly understand something. The design of the Mac was not in how it looked…it was how it worked.” 

It is not so much what people think about us that matters, it’s what heaven knows about us that matters! Use the criticism to your advantage. In fact get on the positive side of it.

"Poverty and shame shall be to him who refuses instruction and correction, but he that heeds reproof is honored." Prov. 13:18.

The notes erased, marked through or scratched out on the paper of our lives are ugly – however stay with it, because when the 'Opus" is finished the melody is beautiful.

Forgetting those things in the past and pressing onto the greater achievements of the future. The symphony you will conduct with all the different talents of the orchestrate (instruments)that shows up in your life can change everything in your future. It's your choice. It's your "Opus".  Be that instrument in the Redeemer hand.

Gorging on Chocolate Love - A Guest Post by @RobEagar



Photo by rob Eagar

Gorging on Chocolate Love 

By
Rob Eagar 

 

Have you ever gone a long time without eating and felt your stomach groan with hunger?  In those situations, what was your body telling you?  Obviously, it was crying out for some nutritious food.  Yet, how often have you consumed chocolate candy out of desperation or convenience, just to get rid of those hunger pangs?  I’ve done it several times. 

What happens?  Initially, feeding your empty stomach with chocolate feels great.  The ache goes away, your hunger disappears, and all of the sugar and caffeine hitting your system gives you the sensation of feeling “high.”  Buzzing with bliss, you wonder why you don’t eat chocolate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

About thirty minutes later, however, everything changes.  A sharper pain than the one before grips your stomach, and your head becomes dizzy.  All of your pleasant feelings degenerate into discomfort worse than your original hunger.

What caused this pain to result? Was there something wrong with the chocolate? No. Chocolate candy is safe to eat, but it doesn’t contain the nutrients necessary for your body to survive. Therefore, when you are hungry, chocolate alone cannot help you. Instead, it makes you feel worse. For your body to thrive, it must receive a steady diet of nutritious food. Then you can enjoy chocolate as a fun dessert. However, you will get sick if you try to live solely on chocolate.

Unfortunately, many singles enter dating relationships by trying to “eat chocolate on an empty stomach.”  They approach one another with hungry hearts, hoping that the other person will feed them.  This condition can be especially acute when a man or woman feels lonely, rejected, or starved for acceptance.  Without love, people become desperate for something to fill the void inside their hearts.  A romance, with its potentially sweet taste and emotional highs, seems the likely solution to their hunger.

Looking for love in all the wrong places
As a single adult, I was hungry for love and searched repeatedly to find a woman to fulfill me. Every new romance that I entered felt like a chocolate sugar high, with soaring emotions, exhilarating self-esteem boosts, and a sweet sense of security.  In the headiness of romantic rapture, my heart thought that a woman could fulfill me forever.  Nevertheless, the euphoria inevitably collapsed.  Sometimes, it took weeks.  At other times, it took months.  My wife’s happiness vanished after a year of dating and seven months of marriage.

Regardless of how wonderful a new dating relationship feels, the romantic bliss will eventually wear off.  Human affection may taste good, but like chocolate, it cannot give our hearts what they need for survival.  The true hunger of our hearts is to be accepted unconditionally.  We need more than just attention, friendship, or sex.  We long for someone to love us despite our faults, mistakes, and imperfections.  Our hearts remain hollow when no one completely accepts us.

Unconditional love
Humans, however, cannot give each other unconditional love. We get upset or impatient when someone fails to make us happy.  Furthermore, we base our love for someone on how well they perform.  The root of this problem is sin, which causes constant mistakes, conflicts, and disappointments.  No one is accepting, patient, and forgiving all of the time. Therefore, human love is like chocolate, because the pleasure doesn’t last.  None of us has the ability to accept people unconditionally.  The affection we give to each other may taste good initially, but the thrill disappears as our selfish motives demand performance, and this problem lasts from the cradle to the grave.

I don’t mean to sound fatalistic, but we must acknowledge the reality that human love is performance-based.  It always has been and always will be.  You can date anyone in this world, but that person cannot give your heart the unconditional acceptance that it craves.

This truth also applies in marriage.  Someone once asked a pastor, “What is your wife’s opinion of you?”  He replied, “It depends on what day you ask her.  Some days, she loves me. Other days, I drive her crazy, and she wonders why she married me.  My wife and I wish we could love each other perfectly, but it is impossible since we both sin and make choices that hurt each other.  God is the only Person who loves us regardless of how we act.”

Is marriage the answer?
Consider those around you.  How many of your married friends warn you that marriage is tougher than you think?  Yet, how many of your single friends complain of feeling incomplete without a spouse?

All too often, we neglect what our hearts really need and attempt to satisfy ourselves with a cheap substitute called romance.  In essence, we try to live on an unhealthy diet of chocolate, but our hearts cannot survive under the demands of performance-based love.  We inevitably burn out, wear out, or drop out, from trying to please others.

In my case, I had to reach total exasperation before I grasped that dating and marriage would never fulfill me. I appeared successful to many people, because I’d had several girlfriends and reached my goal of marriage.  Those romances, however, never fulfilled me. Either I required too much of a woman, or she expected too much of me.  We were sincere in our desire for lasting love, but we couldn’t make it happen.

Real love is out there
You don’t need a new set of dating principles or techniques.  A perfect love waits to delight you.  This love, however, cannot soothe the ache within your heart until you stop chasing after romantic passion or passionate sex.  Those shallow quests lead to emptiness.  The hunger in your heart is for real passion.

Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life.  No one who comes to me will ever be hungry again.” (John 6:35 NLT) 

Passion awaits you

Stop settling for less than what your heart truly desires.  A higher love waits to take you beyond the jaded, cynical disappointments that result from most dating relationships.  No longer does your heart have to survive on the cheap chocolate of empty romance.  You were made to experience more than just manipulation, performance, or selfish indulgence.  You were created by God to share in the ecstasy of real love, not just when you get to heaven but in life on earth as well.  Before you can truly love another person, however, you must first understand how much you are already loved.  So open your heart, and prepare for the passion that awaits you.


More from and about Rob Eagar can be found here and on his professional site at www.startawildfire.com.

Rob's Book, Dating with Pure Passion

 

"Dating with Pure Passion," Available on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/Dating-Pure-Passion-Courtship-Formula/dp/0736916709/

CHRIS TOMLIN ENOUGH from blaze25z on GodTube.