Passionate love… I’m captivated thinking about Your passionate love… swept away when I’m drowning in Your passionate love… here to stay when I’m held in Your passionate love ablaze from Heaven.

Passionate love is God’s standard.

You are the one who will beckon God’s people into passionate love with Him again because His Spirit is saturating you… all over you…

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” John‬ ‭14:26‬ ‭

Listen to His voice.

“The Lord will go forth like a warrior, He will arouse His zeal like a man of war.”  Isaiah 42:13

Jesus’ love is zealous…

Passionate love emanates from a heart of a warrior.

From gratitude for its lover. From dedication and sacrifice to protect and maintain what’s sacred.

You are a holy temple of God’s own craftsmanship and He ordained you to beautify it into a regal palace. 

You are the lover…

You are the nurturer…

You are the spark of fire that awakens your lover to admiration… because you have God’s own Holy Spirit. And He is a faithful lover, every second of every day. Let Him be your guide.

Listen to God’s voice…

God says to you… “I have continuted to extend faithful love to you…” in Jeremiah 31:3. A faithful lover continues love. They do not pause and they do not take a sabbatical. Love never ends as 1 Corinthians 13 says. Because love is the most potent force in the universe, deriving its very substance from the God who is love and cannot be anything other than the love He created.

God’s definition of love keeps loving… and never stops…

Sustaining passion requires intentionality.

Passion doesn’t produce without connection to God. You must exert energy, time, creativity and enthusiasm of heart and soul. A continuous act of giving to your lover. Selflessly. Being mindful of their needs. Proactive, present, and loving in every way.

I’m reminded of Jesus’ words in Luke 11:9-10, “And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

This core value of persistence is seen in Luke 18 in the parable of the persistent widow. I love how Luke frames this passage at the onset. He says Jesus told this parable “to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” Luke 18:1

Always pray…

Never give up…

That’s biblical advice.

That’s Jesus’ advice.

Always pray and never give up!

Persistence unlocks the door to a miracle.

There is something in the lack of the woman of this passage that actually generated a deep power for persistence far more than normal. A passionate endurance to keep moving forward with zeal. A lack will do that for you. It provokes you into higher. Proving it was never a lack at all. It was a catalyst meant to jolt you into a stronger essence, where now you are operating at a higher threshold.

So often a perceived disadvantage can actually be the very fulcrum of your advantage, forcing you to become sharper in other areas that drive your forward. Nothing can hinder you when you allow everything you are to be leverged in the hands of God.

God is a lover and He knows how and when to bring love into our lives. Meaning into our lives. Purpose in our lives. Heaven into our lives…

Keep journeying with God into the territory where you feel you have nothing left… and you will find He had everything waiting for you all along… He is a God of passionate love and provision… He has more for you precious ones.

Persistence unlocks the door to a miracle.

Don’t let someone else’s bad experience halt you from enjoying what God gave you to enjoy. Complacency is their dysfunction, not yours! Don’t let anyone steer you into a lesser form of living where apathy is an excuse for not rising to the standard of God’s passionate love.

There will always be those who seek to snuff your passion when you live from God’s heart but don’t let it affect you. The devil would love nothing more than to take what should be exciting in your life and make it a place of dread. Reject that lie and seek to live how God designed you to live. Free and joyous in the life He’s given.

When others are hopeless, may it not be so with you!

Unleash God’s hope in you!

“For we are not ones who grieve as those who have no hope” as 1 Thessalonians 4:13 says.

We thrive with a holy hope in the God who reigns as God over the universe.

We thrive with eternal life!

We thrive in the Heavens with our minds set on things above where God is!

We reign with passionate love!

He is a God who can change any situation and perpetually transforms us into more of His likeness because we’re in relationship with Him. It’s inevitable that change will come when you know the God who delights to better you and heal you and grow you and garden your life.

Complacency by definition is to accept a situation as is and have no urge to change, grow, or enrich. Complacency says I no longer hope that this will be better. I am going to stop laboring and make peace with the fact this is what is left. This is dangerous territory in love relationships which by nature require that both entities continually contribute to the relationship and grow as individuals in order to sustain the relationship. To be complacent it to be lazy. And lazy love ruins a relationship.

You are a gardener by nature because God designed you to flourish at every season He advances you into higher Kingdom identity as His child.

You don’t ever have to give up hope on any area of your life…

God loves that area of your life, and He wants to bring back life and fulfillment to it.

God is the author of passion!

We cannot afford the damage of complacency. We cannot accept the idea that things are okay how they are. You either till the soil for growth or you watch it deteriorate. There is no inbetween.

Avoidance of an issue will only ensure it amplifies.

Neglect of a house will only condition it to fall apart. But not so with you!

Jesus says in Luke 14:28, “ For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?”

The cost to building a house is worth the investment. Because it provides a sturdy dwelling place for the ones indwelling it with life and vibrancy. Your cost is a joy because you desire to see the house built in its beauty and live in it… so it is with the houses you build in your relationships.

Loving passionately is a mark of God’s own heart. He is a lover who gives, sacrifices, endures, persists, and woos His Bride. And His heart is a gift unto us that He gives so we can be in reciprocal, mutual love with Him.

In Revelation 2:5 God urges His people to love Him passionately.

“But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.” Revelation 2:4-5

God literally says… “I hold this against you.”

Denying Him love is not okay.

He says denying Him love is a deeply painful ailment of His heart… He is a real God with real emotions. And His standard of love is high! He will not accept anything less.

God’s request: “do what you did at first.”

What was your love like at first?

When you couldn’t tame the passion and the affection constantly intrigued a desire for more… God wants that kind of love. It’s His standard. Your spouse wants that kind of love too. Don’t withhold it… Your love means something.

Reject the standard of someone else’s apathy.

Refuse to settle for the consensus of communal lethargy.

Don’t let someone else’s lackluster rob you of your zeal!

You’re too powerful for that!

You’re too gifted for that.

You know exactly how to love…

You are set apart for God’s mission and what resides in you touches nations… commissions fleets in motion… and sets hearts on fire. Guard your passion!

God is present in you…

“We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God.” 1 John 4:16

There was a pause of the universal axis… where the earth stood still and my heart was the only thing left beating… speaking in the silence… communicating a holy epiphane of what I didn’t see until now… you love me. You really love me. A million emotions cascaded over surging waters of my mind’s unleashing of the realization… you love me. You really do love me. And I love you… Words scattered in this moment… my heart is adrfit in the endless seas of passionate reality… a dream that never has to be a dream… you are real to me and I to you. When you know you are loved… it melts you at this intense and amplified level of ecstasy… that you want to stay in forever… you love me… you really love me… and I love that you do.

He loves you…

When you realize you are loved, it satisfies the heart deeply.

We have come to know and believe…

This love is real…

God is a lover and He knows how and when to bring love into our lives. Meaning into our lives. Purpose in our lives. Heaven into our lives…

Keep journeying with God into the territory where you feel you have nothing left… and you will find He had everything waiting for you all along… He is a God of passionate love and provision… He has more for you precious ones.

Passionate love…

Passionate zeal…

A zeal from his own warrior heart…

It’s in you too…

That warrior heart…

That zeal…

Zeal cloaks you with passion oozing out of you like love abounding… because you are love abounding…

What is zeal?

As I started thinking of zeal, I got many visions. One was a vision of the apostle Paul. Writing letters in a jail cell… his loving, tender heart bleeding onto the pages. That is zeal. Confined in a brick space lined with iron. He kept writing. No one to touch or love or talk to. He kept writing. Isolated and separated from the outside world. He kept writing… and what He wrote makes up two thirds of the Bible’s New Testament. That is zeal.

Passion…

Dedication…

Faithfulness…

That is zeal.

Paul’s imprisonment generated healing and wisdom to millions and now billions of people.

That is the kind of zeal that is in you…

Tender confidence…

Affectionate power…

Strong and steady…

Trustworthy and selfless…

I love his tender confidence. I know his tender confidence because of what I read in his letters. Love oozes out from him… even in a jail cell he still oozed out zealous passion. How can this be? I know how… because He had Jesus so strongly in him.

A man who hosts Jesus inside of him exudes zeal in every way, no matter where he is.

I hear the Lord saying… he didn’t feel loved like he once did. But because he didn’t give up on living, I used him to touch millions. Now I’m giving him love again… passionate love…

God wants to love you… you deserve every ounce of love… for all you have poured out…

Zeal can be measured by war cries and loud shouts into the night but it can also be measured by the quiet steadiness of longevity and faithfulness no one else can see. Zeal is rooted in love and love in sacrifice of the self. Altogether channeling the spirit into a supernatural haven of expression of the heart, no matter what it may be feeling.

Zeal is powerful.

Zeal is reliable.

Zeal is real and honest and passionate and full of love…

David has this zeal… this vulnerabiltiy and love ache before the Lord to know Him. That is zeal. When the heart cries before the Lord in the war toiling around him and nobody notices… but God does. And God sees. God breathes life into the deep so that you can flourish in that space no matter what isn’t what it used to be.

Liberated love… no restraint can restrain it. No disadvantage can silence it. Zeal speaks in the confines. And echoes in the world around.

Your voice is full of zeal…

It always was.

Rise up…

The world needs you to be God’s mouthpiece to a generation who doesn’t know where to look or where to turn for truth. You know whom you serve! Like Joshua called his men to rise up and seek the Lord, let your mantra me known that “as for me and my house we will serve the Lord!” Joshua 24:15

Godly leadership beckons the people to seek God’s face in a culture that denies Him. Godly leadership sets the standard and does not bend it to fit to what ungodly voices request. Godly leadership operates according to strength and sacrifice, not apathy and complacency. Godly leadership wins wars and signs treaties. Godly leadership sees lives changed and miracles take place. Godly leadership sees the hand of God on his life and how God shows up in unexpected ways. Godly leadership sees the fruit of God’s favor on his family. Godly leadership never stops believing that all things can be rejuvenated unto the passionate zeal of the Lord’s heart of love. Godly leadership causes everyone around him see more of the Lord. Godly leadership changes the world. That is who you are… a world changer.

You are the one who rises higher and sets the tone… voice the courage and power of God already ablaze in you.

Don’t subject your sacred hearth of ardor to the opinion of those whose fires have burned out. Let God be your standard!

His flame is ever perpetually burning…

Never extinguished.

And so is yours.

God is present in you… don’t forget that.

You are a fiery furnace of goodness aflame… of passion awake… of godliness engrained in you from the God who made you to resound the love of His heart into a frequency expounding Him.

Those who look up to you need to see that zealous heart you possess… you have shown it already… keep unveiling it again and again. That we may see more of the Lord through you.

in the heart of a warrior

ardor

dwells

liquid gold

melts

a fragrant soul

is felt

in the telling of the story of the Lord

he wins the war

with the sword of the Spirit’s glory

victorious territory

marked

by his name

engrained

by the One who’s Name

anointed

you from the start

you are a king

after God’s own heart

“And as a groom rejoices over his bride, so your God will rejoice over you.”

Isaiah 62:5