Years back, I took some brethren along with me to the mission field somewhere in Kogi state. The place we went was very far from the city. One of the brethren asked, "what is your drive? What brings you to places like these"( paraphrase). That's the power of passion at work. It is a fuel needed to drive every vision.
Passion comes from the Latin root word "passio" which means "to suffer for". According to history makers manual, "Passion is what you hunger for so intensely that you will sacrifice anything to have it. Passion will not let you go until God's goals are reached. Passion is the fire and urgency that vision needs to remain alive and active".
No vision becomes a reality without passion. I have seen men with great vision who lacks passion. Without passion, vision becomes illusion.
The vision of Christ to see a redeemed world is the reason we talk about the passion( suffering) of Christ. How would we have been saved without the passion of Christ?. Every saved believer is a product Christ's passion. How do you think your vision will be a blessing to lives without a passionate pursuit?
Passion is what made men like George Whitefield to pray saying, "O Lord, give me souls or take my soul." John Knox said, "Lord, give me Scotland or I die!". Amy Carmichael, a missionary to India said, "Don't come If you haven't made up your mind to live for one thing-- the winning of souls."
The moment you begin to feel tired and weak to pursue the vision of God for your life, start asking the Lord to refuel your passion for the vision.
When Jeremiah was commissioned as a prophet to his generation carrying a burden for the people, he said, "...His word in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot"( Jeremiah 20:9). He felt a burning on the inside.
You cannot withold yourself from doing what the Lord has asked or assigned you to do If divine passion comes on you. It is what you need to step into ministry and remain. I have seen lots of people who claimed to have been called by God but doing nothing about their calling. They keep postponing their launching out. They lack passion.
The writer of Ablaze for God, Wesley Duewel says, "We cannot light this fire. In ourselves we cannot produce it. No man can kindle in himself that celestial fire; it must come from the live coal from the altar above".
