Pause

Identifying your passion is a matter of figuring out what drives you, what pulls you, what captures your imagination. It's almost as though you can't help but give it your attention.

God has a passion for the renewal of life and the reconciliation of all God has made. When a person gets close to the fire of that which drives God, it can set that person aflame.

Be careful now as you spend these next moments with God. It is altogether possible that you will feel a holy heat.

Listen

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Exodus 20:4-6

Think

“Accept no substitutes!” advertisers warn us from TVs and magazines. I’ve got nothing against generic products. But anyone who’s ever compared a store brand chocolate cookie with an Oreo knows that sometimes only the original will do. In the Second Commandment, God tells us: Only the Original will do.

Imagine drawing a picture of your girlfriend or boyfriend, or your husband or wife. Then imagine relating entirely to that picture instead of to him or her. They’d be really annoyed, and who could blame them? But all the time we treat people and things as though they are God, while ignoring the real God. God gets angry with that, and rightly so.

“I Am who I Am,” says God. “Trust that I am the only one worth building your life around.”

Julie Pennington-Russell

Pray

Dear God, thank you for sending Jesus to show us what you are really like. Help me to follow you. The real you. Whatever you want me to do, wherever you want me to go, whoever you want me to be — I’m yours. Amen.

Go

Therefore,
Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken,
Let us give thanks,
By which we offer to God an acceptable worship
With reverence and awe;
For indeed our God is
A consuming fire.

Hebrews 12:28-29