Passion.

Day 20.

So here it is. I’m going to be talking from the title, ‘Passion Energizes Your Talent’, a chapter from the book, ‘Beyond Talent’ by John Maxwell.

To reiterate the bedrock of what I wanted to share throughout this entire series, I wanted to say again:

We all have a Foundation. It is our answer to the question, ‘who do you believe loves you the most?’
We all have beliefs. Beliefs are built upon our Foundation.
We are all unique beings. What makes us unique is what manifests out of our beliefs.
Part of our Being is our Knowledge (the information we know), our Skill (the things that we do), and our Will (what we love).
When Knowledge, Skill, and Will work together, then you have Talent.

Last week we also spoke on how our Beliefs naturally lift our talent, simply because our Talents stand upon our beliefs. We put Talent in its place, and that is after Beliefs. In other words, if you’re having trouble figuring out what your talents are, you may want to consult your Beliefs, or better yet, you would do better to consult your Foundation.

In our case, as Christians, our Foundation is Christ. Understand two things: (1) Before Christ became our Foundation, we were as everyone else was, in that we were our own Foundations. Also, (2) I say that Christ is our Foundation, and not God – For how would we call God, ‘Abba, Father’, if not for the workings of the Holy Spirit, who Himself was poured out upon us… through the finished work of Jesus Christ?

So far, what I want each of us to grasp, as I am grasping, is that if you call yourself a Christian, you certainly have no other Foundation than Christ, who is the Rock on whom we all stand. Consequently, since we stand, live, move, and have our being in Christ, we can all say that He is our Common Ground. Before we say anything about being in the same service, or the same Church, or having beliefs and attitudes and tastes in music and style in common, friends – ALL of us have Christ in common.

This is why we say we are the Body of Christ. We are not the Body of Good News, we are not the Body of Aces, more than we are first and foremost – the Body of Christ… and it’s because of this perspective that we can all tell each other – ‘If problems persist, consult your Maker.’

Indeed, if you’re having trouble understanding your talent, or even, who you are as a person, I believe anyone and everyone who call themselves a Christian can certainly refer to their beliefs… or, even better, their Savior.

I really think I need to keep on repeating this, every time I talk about Talent.

Now, we’re talking about Passion. Quite the over-reaching term. Lovers kiss passionately. Most people are inclined to taking one look at a guy playing the guitar and swooning and stuff and call him passionate.

But let’s take a look at Merriam Webster. The first definition of Passion as ‘the sufferings of Christ’ or plain ‘suffering’, then ‘the state of being acted on by external forces’, and then ‘intense or overmastering feeling’… finally, we see Passion is also known as ‘a strong liking or desire.‘

We could put all of this together, and really, what we have is a story – Of Christ laying His life down, subjecting Himself to suffering and being acted on by external forces, because He had an intense feeling, and a strong desire for us.

Simply put, Christ likes us.

Those of us who have siblings like to ask our Moms every now and then, ‘who do you love the most?’ and we would get the eternal ‘I love ALL of you equally!’ – and though this may pull at our heartstrings, much more if we understand that the Creator of the Universe says the same thing, it doesn’t quite strike me as much as knowing that Christ LIKES me.

We like to talk about how Christ loves us and we imagine for ourselves, and even throw this thought for others to consider – that Christ loves us and wants the best for us and wants us to be the best that we could be – which kind of also implies that He doesn’t love us AS much as He would if we had the best and we WERE the best.

But check this – Christ loves us, and He LIKES us – this means that He is fascinated by us, the same way we’re fascinated with whatever we think is important.

For a moment I’m remembering Christ talking to Mary, and I’d like to imagine one perspective of this situation – here’s Christ, talking to Mary, and Mary’s listening and is so amazed, sure, but here’s Christ enjoying just as much! Then Martha walks in and says, tell Mary to help me! Kind of makes me imagine, that Christ could have gone to Martha and helped her out with the cooking, but would be put off by Martha being all like, ‘Hey, Jesus, check out this dish I’m making you! This is for you and I’m making it and I know you’re gonna like it!’

Christ was enjoying Mary, and Mary was enjoying Christ, and true enough to His rebuke, He was telling Martha, this is what was important.

So how does this all tie in to Passion? Well, I guess I’m going to leave you guys with the same challenge I said regarding our Talents; If you’re having trouble figuring out your Talents, consult your Maker, who has the Talent of creating you.

If you’re having trouble being ‘passionate’, well, draw some passion from the Truth that Christ LIKES you that much and is so passionate about all of you here and now, and not just who you’re going to be.

I don’t know, that’s all I have for now. I suppose I could add more to this later today, but I’ll stick to this.

Where do you think God showed His talent in creating you?

What about you do you think is Christ most passionate?

These may be the questions for you to consider.