Passion of the God-kind

    
    "Let only one thing be your passion, one thing in this life, and that is God... He should be the One and only passion you have . . ."

These words were spoken to a group of individuals, myself included, many years ago by a certain pastor who owned a music venue.  Since then, I have never forgotten those words; and honestly, I have wrestled with them from time to time through the years, and to be perfectly honest, at the time, I only partially understand what those words meant...
 
I was a musician (and still am) in a band...  I did not totally understand why music could not be my passion, as well as God...  I mean, He puts certain desires in our hearts, gives us certain gifts and talents; he wants us to find a healthy pleasure in those things, right?  So, what was the problem?
 
Well, in comparison to our God, nothing else is worth being impassioned about... In fact, what should gives us the MOST fulfillment and satisfaction and pleasure in this life--is giving glory to the God of the universe--our Creator!  Everything else fades in contrast... in like manner, our music, our hobbies, our roles at our jobs, the things we watch, the things we say, the way we raise our families, the things we spend our money on, the things we think, ALL the things we enjoy doing and get pleasure from doing--should do the same--which is to glorify Yahweh, our Lord...  anything we do, in and of itself, should not be what drives us... anything we do should be the "instrument" or means to give glory to Him!  This is what I have come to understand...

And I don't doubt that many of us, perhaps, understand this in principle, but as so many things, does this go very much beyond a theoretical level?  We have this "knowledge" of the Kingdom and how it works, but what do we do with what we've learned?  Do we squander this knowledge?  The principles are taught to us, but are we taught adequately how to apply the principles?
 
Put more plainly, Jesus told His disciples, "Go and make disciples..." for a reason!  Notice He did not say, * "Go therefore and make converts of all the nations, teaching them nice-sounding principles..."  There is a HUGE difference!  Yes, we teach them the principles, but we SHOW them as well... which leads us to the next part of Showing people the Kingdom, as illustrated in the following story. . . .


*Compare to Matthew 28:19 & 20