A Passion for God

One of the strongest desires that should mark my life as a believer is a passion for God. 

I believe a passion for God is found in those who fear God and have a humble and contrite heart before God. Meriam Webster defined the word passion, in his 1928 Webster’s Dictionary of American English this way, “Zeal; ardor; vehement desire.” Therefore, based on this definition having a passion for God is having a zeal, an ardor or a red-hot eagerness, and vehement desire for God. 

There is one character in the Bible who clearly evidenced this kind of desire for God – King David. He wrote about this in the Psalms when he talked about his desire for God. Consider what he wrote in Psalm 63:1, “Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water.” And in Psalm 84:2, “My soul longs, yes, even faints For the courts of the LORD; My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”

David was known as a shepherd, a soldier, and the beloved King of Judah, but he was also known by God as a man who had a great longing and desire for God.

Amazingly, God gives testimony of David’s heart for him in 1 Samuel 13:14, “… The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart…” and in Acts13:22, “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will.’ 

There are two things we learn about having a passion for God from what David wrote and God’s testimony of David. There is a deep longing within for God, and this longing for God is evidenced by a devotion to doing God’s will. Ask God to give you a deep longing for Him and a devotion to doing His will. Isaiah 57:15, can help prepare us to have a deep longing for God and a devotion to doing His will. 

Our God, “Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy,” dwells in “the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit…” 

This is monumental to developing a passion for God and a devotion to doing His will. We must be contrite and humble. The literal meaning is, to be crushed and lowly.

This means we must be broken over our sins and confess and repent of them. God’s promise to the crushed and lowly is He will dwell with them and He will revive them! 

Make this week a week of self-examination and a week of renewing your passion for God! 

“Your priorities must be God first, God second, and God third, until your life is continually face to face with God.” — Oswald Chambers