“And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Galatians 5:24, ESV)
Follow your passion! We are told that if we follow our passion that we will find fulfillment.
But there are millions of people who struggle and feel unfulfilled in their work. We are told the antidote to this problem is to muster the courage to leave the job we hate and pursue our passion. This may seem impossible. But the idea is to put our faith in our passion. If we have enough passion, we will get through. Passion is made out to be the savior.
The problem with this is that we are rarely passionate about things that contribute values to others. When I recently asked a group of Middle School kids about the things they were passionate about, they responded with things like sports, video games, music, and friends. They revolved around things which they did for enjoyment. They did not mention things that contributed value to others.
As adults, that does not change. We are passionate about things like golfing, fishing, football, and our favorite TV shows. We are passionate about the things that we enjoy doing. Rarely does our passion translate value to others where we might earn and income. If we only lived our passions, we would go broke and find ourselves in want.
However, there is a great misunderstanding about what passion is. Passion is not about what we enjoy. Passion is what we are willing to suffer. The word passion comes from the Latin word “padi” which means to suffer. The Passion of Christ is a description of Jesus’ suffering on the cross.
There is always going to be work that is strenuous and taxing. There are days where I have to do things I would rather not do. But Galatians 5:24 tells us to crucify our passions and our desires. That is to set aside what may bring us temporary and fleeting satisfaction for something greater – the joy of Jesus. Life in Jesus gives us the passion for living out these words and making sacrifices. Passion is about sacrifice for the benefit of others and the glory of Jesus’ name.
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