Living "The Passion"
I, like most of you, have seen “The Passion.” I pray for the impact it has and is going to have on people’s lives. I can’t speak for anyone else, but my life was changed at the cross a long time ago…it is there my sins were forgiven…it was there I was set free…it was there I found purpose and direction in my life. There are a lot of reasons for choosing Jesus and none of them are bad. Certainly many have come to Christ because they did not want to go to hell. Nobody does and who am I to say there is a better reason to follow Him. All I can say is that for me, what Jesus did on the cross is the focus of why I have followed Him for all these years. He did it for me and like the story of the slave I love to tell, “If you gave all that you had so I could go free, then I’ll spend my life serving you.”
My reaction to “The Passion” was somewhat different from what I expected. I found myself getting angry at the brutality and cruelty He had to suffer. Now I know that is my sins that caused all that, but after following Him for all my life, it was hard to see my best friend and my Savior have to take all that punishment. My fist stayed tightly clinched through the whole movie. I wanted to do something!
But more than anything, I came away with resolve…a commitment to try to live
the passion of my faith, with less worry about what the consequences might be to
following Him. What an honor it
would be to suffer for Christ’s sake, not that I ever have.
But the fact that He suffered for my sake motivates me to live for Him.
We need passion in our lives to serve Him. And
the true test of this movie will not be how many people see it.
The true test will be how many people will live it in the days to come.
There is no doubt the cross will touch our lives…it always has.
And if we let it, the cross will change the way we live.
May each of us live for Christ as He died for us…with the passion of
love. And it is that passion of our
love for Christ that will change the way we live and change our world in His
name.
Thanks
be to God.