Seven passion killers that can keep you from having a passion for the Lord.
1. An unbalanced schedule
That means either if you’re overworked or you are under worked you’re going to lose your passion for life and lose your passion for God. Life is a series of seasons, the Bible says. There’s a season for everything. And there’s a rhythm to life. You need both in your life -- both input and output. You need both rest and work. And too much of either will cause you to lose your passion. Too much work will cause you to lose your passion. Too much nothing -- boredom -- will cause you to lose your passion too, if you’re not working enough.
2. An unused talent
An unused talent will cause you to lose your passion for life and your passion for God. 1 Peter 4:10 says "Each of you has been blessed with one of God’s many wonderful gifts to be used in the service of others. So use your gifts well." Notice God gives you certain talents, abilities, personality, gifts -- the shape that He’s given you -- and those gifts, those talents that you’ve been given are not for your benefit. They’re for the benefit of other people. My gifts are for your benefit. Your gifts are for my benefit. You are to use those gifts in the service of other people. God has given you a special role in this world. He wants you to make a contribution with your life. God says, I have given you these gifts and talents.
If you don’t use your talents you’re going to lose your passion. God did not give you special abilities just to sit on them and do nothing about it. God says I want you to use it or you’re going to lose it.
Let me get real specific. If you are stuck in a job that does not use your talents to any degree you are inevitably going to lose your zeal and zest and passion in life. It’s going to burn you out. Studies have shown that 70% of all Americans are in a job that does not use their talents. That’s tragic. That makes God sad. Because God did not give you talents and then say, "Don’t use them. Just go make some money." There’s something more important than money. That is using what God gave you. God is grieved when He looks and sees you in a job that’s not using your talents. He’s going, "What do you think I gave you your talents for? Just to sit on them?" No. If you do that you’re going to lose your passion.
1 Corinthians 7 "Each one should live his life with the gifts that the Lord has given him." God gave you gifts and abilities and talents to use.
3. An unconfessed sin
This is a big one. Few things rob us of joy, rob your confidence, rob your passion, more quickly than guilt. Here’s how it works with us with guilt, the sin in our lives. We don’t walk around thinking, "I have a sin in my life. I am a guilty person." No, we rationalize it consciously. Consciously we think, "It’s ok. Everybody’s doing it. It’s no big deal." But subconsciously it gnaws at us. Subconsciously whenever it gets quiet that guilt pops into your mind. Subconsciously right now as I’m talking about it, it begins to pop into your mind.
Here’s the truth about us as human beings. We cannot feel enthusiasm and guilt at the same time. You can’t feel guilt and passion at the same time because guilt by its very definition robs you of passion. Psalm 38:4&6 "My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear... I am bowed down and I am brought low."
A lot of you work on computers. Sometimes they crash. They stop working. Some program tries to write the wrong thing to the wrong place and it’s gone! Guilt does that to us as human beings. We’re not made to live with guilt. God did not make you to carry guilt around in your life. He made us to deal with it immediately. He sent Jesus to this earth to die on a cross to say, I want to offer you a gift -- freedom from guilt. That is God’s gift.
There’s a fourth cause for a loss of passion in our lives.
4. An unresolved conflict
Conflict just drains the passion right out of you. Do you ever start a day and it’s going to be a great day -- you know it. You just fly out of bed. You’re awake from the moment you get up. You’re ready for the day -- shower, breakfast -- you’re ready. You’re on the way out the door and you have a fight with your husband or your wife. All the zip goes out of your doo-dah. It’s like the air going out of a tire when the conflict comes. That’s what conflict does to us. It takes all the passion out of our lives. Your attitude all of a sudden just goes flat.
Let’s be honest about this. Some of you, you’re in situations at home or at work where the conflict is constant. Maybe you’re even doing all that you can to minimize the conflict. But it’s coming from the other person. How do you keep your passion in a situation like that?
You decide to protect yourself from the three passion killing emotions that can come into our lives in conflict. You cannot control the other person always. But you can control the kind of emotions you have in the midst of the conflict. The three emotions that kill our passion in the midst of conflict are resentment, jealously and prolonged anger.
There’s a fifth cause for loss of passion.
5. An unsupported lifestyle
Sometimes you lose passion for God because you’re not spending time around other people who have a passion for God. You’re not spending time around other Christians. You’re not getting any fellowship. I love this incredibly practical verse in Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, just common sense from the Bible. "Two are better than one... because if one falls down his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!" We need each other. We all fall sometimes. We all stumble at times. So we all need people to help us up in our lives.
The sixth passion killer is...
6. An unclear purpose
When you forget the purpose of your life that is a sure way to kill your passion for life and for God. If you don’t know the purpose for life, why bother? Why get up in the morning? Why put forth the effort? Why get out of bed? Life without purpose is activity without direction. It’s motion without meaning. Life without purpose is trivial, petty, and pointless.
"Passion is waking up in the morning wherever you are and bounding out of bed because you know there’s something out there that you love to do, that you believe in, that God made you for and you’re good at, something that’s bigger than you are and you can hardly wait to get at it again. It’s something that you’d rather be doing than anything else and you wouldn’t give it up for money because it means more to you than money."
Finally,
7. An undernourished spirit will kill your passion.
Every day you face all kinds of circumstances that conspire to shrink your spirit and shrivel your heart. You’re going to get up tomorrow morning. You’re going to have distractions and disappointments. You’re going to have conflicts and you’re going to have changes and challenges. You’re going to have problems and pressures. You’re going to have frustrations and fears and failures and fatigue. All of these things fall in on you to shrivel your heart and shrink your spirit. So you must intentionally nourish your spirit. If you don’t do it nobody else is going to do it for you. Nobody else is going to nourish your spirit. So if you don’t take the time and trouble to do it, it’s going to shrivel up.
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