Passionate About What?

Humans are passionate beings. I have never seen a couple of animals hugging, high-fiving, or celebrating…except on that Geico commercial with the squirrels. That is just the way that we are made. God made man to be a passionate creation with whom God could have a personal relationship. Contrary to popular opinion, being passionate and emotional is a characteristic of worship.

I have grown up in Baptist Churches my whole life. For the most part, my Church experience was an audience-focused ceremony. Basically, I was under the impression that the members of the Church came together to be the audience for whoever was speaking or singing that morning. It was so predictable that I, along with other kids, would make a game out of guessing the “order of service”. We would go as far as to pre-mark the hymns that would be sung that morning, so we could be the first to stand up and have the page ready to go. I had the disillusionment that Church was the service.

Now I understand that the Church is people. And you know what, as we gather together as one body, we are not the audience awaiting a message. We are to be the worshippers, and God is our audience. We tend to focus a whole lot on ourselves and the “things” that are going on around us. That is when we need to stop and return our focus and praise to God.

Because of the reversed impression of Church that I had, emotion and passion were never in the formula for worship. I was basically told that I could be passionate about sports, entertainment, family, or other worldly things, but when it came to worshipping God, it must be formal and lethargic. No one ever said that to me, but that is what I gathered as I watched and studied what went on in Church.

People, we need to wake up. The most passionate thing in our life should be worshipping God. It should dominate our being, so that everything we do, say, or think will ooze with passion for the one “who loved us and gave himself for us.” On the other hand there are those that are passionate and emotional while they are at Church, but their life the rest of the week is dead and decaying. If we put the focus on God and off of me or you, true worship will be a passionate experience.

Steven Curtis Chapman had a great example of how we treat God’s glory on his CD, Declaration. In the song, “See the Glory”, he talks about how his children act in different situations. His one son was playing the Game Boy while they were at the Grand Canyon. His daughter was playing in a mud puddle in the parking lot when they went to the beach. His other child was eating candy at a formal dinner that they went to. He tied it together to show how we treat God. Who in their right mind would play a silly video game while visiting the Grand Canyon? The same person who would look at their watch every ten minutes during a Sunday worship service…

We need to wake up and see the Glory!