OVERCOMING SPIRITUAL LETHARGY – PART 2

3 – Confess And Repent Of All Sin:

There are few things that steal our joy more quickly, our passion faster than an un-confessed sin and the guilt that comes from that. What many of us do is rationalize it subconsciously. We do not think about it consciously but we push it down and subconsciously it is affecting our lives. [My guilt overwhelms me; it is a burden too heavy to bear.] -- Psalms 38:4. You cannot feel enthusiasm and guilt at the same time; it does not work. Most of you use computers on a daily basis and you know what happens when your system crashes. Some of you are in the middle of a personal system crash. You are trying to be enthusiastic about life but there is this guilt there that is crashing your joy. This, sounds like it would be the most difficult problem to solve. But fortunately, it is really one of the easiest problems to solve when it comes to passion in our lives. [If we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.] -- 1 John 1:9. All I have to do is take it to YHVH, tell Him the truth about who I am and ask Him to forgive me, and promise to follow His Way. I just need to ask Him to help me start living the new way all over again. We want to keep short accounts with YHVH instead of letting it go a month, a week, or even a few hours. As soon as we know there is something wrong, we need to immediately go to YHVH with it, confess it and get back to living life again.

4 – Resolve Any Conflict:

Have you ever started the day thinking: [This is going to be a great day!?] Then you have a fight with your husband / wife and all the excitement is drained away. It is one of those things when an unresolved conflict just eats away at us, the passion just drains right out of us. It is like letting the air out of a tire; life just goes flat. Some of you are in situations at home or work where there is constant conflict. You cannot do anything about it and you cannot change it. What do you do? How do you keep that from draining the passion from your life? Here’s what you can do about it: If you want to be passionate no matter what conflict you have to live with, you need to avoid three passion killing emotions in your life: resentment, jealousy, and prolonged anger. [Surely resentment destroys the fool, and jealousy kills the simple.] -- Job 5:2. [Do not sin by letting anger gain control over you. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a mighty foothold to the devil.] -- Ephesians 4:26-27. Those 3 words; resentment, jealousy and anger, will kill your passion every time. This is why YHVH tells us that forgiveness is so important. This is why YHVH teaches us again and again to forgive other people. He knows what it does to us. If I hold on to anger in my life, I am allowing other people, through that resentment, to control my emotions. And eventually, through that, they control my passion and control my life. If I want my passion back, I have to learn to forgive; I have to learn to let go.

5 – Invest In Yourself:

At its root, passion is a spiritual issue: It’s a matter of the heart. You cannot restore your passion with money and you cannot restore your passion with a pill. It comes from within the heart. You are more than just a body. YHVH gave you a Spirit, He gave you the ability to talk with Him and commune with Him and to be passionate. You need to nourish your Spirit by investing in yourself Spiritually. Every week there are circumstances and situations that come into your life that are conspiring to shrink your heart and to shrivel your Spirit. Situations like when people are rude to you, when people criticize you or misjudge you or when you face disappointment. Because you are alive, you are going to face, on a weekly basis, problems and pain and there are going to be situations that you worry about and there are going to be situations that leave you bone-tired and fatigued. If you do not nourish your Spirit, your heart will grow cold and hard. Your Spirit will shrink, shrivel up and in old age, you are going to be a crotchety, cranky, grumpy irritable person that nobody likes. And I really think that you do not want to be that. You want to be fully alive until you go to the grave. Many people die before they die, if you know what I mean. They let their heart and their spirit shrivel up. What’s the antidote? You must intentionally invest in yourself by nourishing and feeding your Spirit. How do you do that? [And now, just as you accepted Moshiach Yeshua as your Adonai, you must continue to live in obedience to Him. Let your roots grow down into Him and draw up nourishment from Him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught. Let your lives overflow with thanksgiving for all He has done.] -- Colossians 2:6-7. If you want to stay passionate your entire life, you have to get plugged into YHVH. You have to develop a daily, vital, growing, vibrant relationship with Yeshua Moshiach where your Spiritual roots grow deep into YHVH’s Word and you spend time with Him so that you are restored and renewed spiritually on a day-by-day basis. It is so simple that we often miss it. Invest in yourself, by allowing YHVH to speak to you through His Word and through prayer.

Read a chapter from the Bible, sit back and say: [YHVH, let me know what You are trying to say to me today.] YHVH is a passionate King Most High and He wants you to be passionate. The Bible tells us many times about YHVH’s passion. When we talk about Yeshua’ death on the cross that is called Moshiach’s passion and it is important that we know about YHVH’s passion in that sense. But did you know that YHVH is passionate about getting to know you and you getting to know Him? [You must worship no other gods, but only ADONAI, for He is a YHVH who is passionate about His relationship with you.] -- Exodus 34:14. I know this is mind boggling and hard to understand, but our Creator of the Universe, who made everybody and everything on earth, that one called YHVH, wants to have a relationship with you. And it is not just something that is on the back of His agenda or when He could get the time, He wants that relationship with you. If you do not get excited about that you just do not understand the implications of what I am saying here. The Creator of the universe wants you to know Him and invites you into a relationship that is intimate, vital and passionate. The better you get to know YHVH, the more you are going to fall in love with Him, and the better you understand what He has done for you, the more passionate you are going to be about loving Him with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. You know, there is a natural passion in a new believer. When you first learn the great truths of the Good News it makes you passionate. When you learn; firstly, that every sin you have ever committed and every sin you are going to commit have already been forgiven and secondly, that YHVH made you for a purpose, there is a meaning and significance to life then that makes you passionate. And then YHVH says: [I have a place called heaven that is perfect. I have prepared it for you and because you have committed your life to Moshiach, one day you are going to spend eternity with Me in that perfect place. It is guaranteed.] You get passionate when you first learn those things and you want to tell everybody. This is the greatest news you have ever heard. But as time goes by, we begin to take these benefits for granted. I wonder; has there ever been a time in your life when you were closer to YHVH than you are right now? If the answer is yes, it is time to return to that passion you once felt. May YHVH open the windows of heaven and bless you all abundantly.

OVERCOMING SPIRITUAL LETHARGY – PART 1

The impetus behind all great art, all great music, all great literature, the driving force behind all great drama and all great architecture is passion. Passion is what makes things great, is what mobilizes armies to sacrifice themselves in battle, is what enables and drives scientists to find new cures to dreaded diseases, is what equips athletes to break records and get to the Olympics and is what sustains you in reaching your goals as you go through life. Nothing great is done without passion. Passion turns the impossible into the possible and it energizes life.

It Is All About Passion!

Passion is what makes your life alive and without passion your life is dull and boring. YHVH wants you to live a passionate life, He wants you to sense the passion that He put within you by His Nature. Yeshua said that the greatest Commandment was this: [Love Adonai YHVH with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.] -- Mark 12:30. And that is what most of us really want to do but for some of us, we have gone into a state of spiritual lethargy and even though we still believe all the right things, the passion for Moshiach and our faith has somehow been drained away. So, what happened? After a while, that passion began to drain out of your life, the enthusiasm began to fade and your zest and your zip and the joy in your life began to go away. Life became so… daily, mundane, routine! Your dreams began to gather dust. It is a predictable pattern and it is something that happens to most of us at some point in our faith walk. First thing, you get the blows; then you begin to lower your expectations in life; then you begin to question things around you; then inevitably, if you let this spiral go on, you will find yourself going through the motions of faith, with no passion whatsoever to back them up. This results in guilt, a lack of desire to serve our Adonai and eventually, if something is not done about it, you will find yourself dropping out of the church altogether.

How Do I Get It Back?

If you are in this state of mind you do not get there overnight, so please be patient with the process.

1 – Rediscover Your Purpose

Living without purpose is the most common reason people lack passion. Without a purpose for living, why bother? Why put forth the effort? Why get out of bed in the morning? If you have no reason for using energy, why expend it? Why not just check in and say: [Been there, done that!] The fact is, life seems pretty futile, if you do not know your purpose. The longer you go through adult life without clarifying what YHVH’s purpose is for your life, the less passion you are going to have, because passion and purpose go together. Without purpose, life is passionless and there is no reason for enthusiasm over the long haul. On the other hand, a clear purpose creates passion. The greater your purpose in life, the more passionate you are going to be about living, the more fully alive you are going to be. If you have a little small purpose [I only live for myself], then you are not going to have much passion in life. If you have a medium sized purpose, then you will have a medium, moderate amount of passion. But if you get YHVH’s purpose for your life, which is huge, it is all that YHVH meant for you to be and you begin to see that you are a part of His Kingdom, and His plan and you commit yourself to His purpose for your life and sharing His news with other people, you have an enormous purpose and it creates significant passion in your life. There is nothing more significant than being what YHVH made you to be, doing what YHVH made you to do, thinking like YHVH made you to think, sharing in the greatest cause in the world; the advancement of His Kingdom. There is no greater cause and it creates the greatest amount of passion in life. [We know that YHVH causes everything to work together for the good of those who love YHVH and are called according to His Purpose for them. For YHVH knew His people in advance and He chose them to become like His Son, so that His Son would be the firstborn, with many brothers and sisters.] -- Romans 8:28-29. Verse 28 tells us that YHVH works for good in the lives of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose for them, but verse 29 explains what His purpose is; it is for us to [become like His Son] Yeshua Moshiach. We can come up with all kinds of individual purposes, but the one that we can say is true for every Moshiach follower is the main purpose we have in life, which is to live like Yeshua Moshiach. When we forget that purpose and begin following our own agendas, instead of the one YHVH has chosen for us, we go into a state of spiritual lethargy. The only way to come out of it is to rediscover, restate and begin living by the purpose YHVH has clearly given to us.

2 – Unwrap Your Spiritual Gift!

YHVH has given you certain Gifts and abilities and He gave them to you for a purpose. If you are stuck in a job or a career that ignores your talent, you are going to lose your passion for that job, because there is a boredom factor at work here. Studies have shown that a large percentage of all British people are in the wrong job. If you have a job that uses only 30% of your talent, abilities and brainpower, that leaves a 70% boredom factor. The same is true in the Kingdom of YHVH; if you are not using the Spiritual Gifts that YHVH has given to you, you will become bored with our faith, because you are not being used the way YHVH intended for you to be used. Now you are never going to find a job or career that uses 100% of your talents because YHVH never meant for you to find total fulfilment just in your career. That is why you need to have a testimony and ministry where you are doing something outside of your career, using talents that you are not using at work in ways that can be used to bless the Body of Moshiach, help the world and make it a better place. You do it just out of the sheer joy of using your talents. The Bible says that YHVH put you on this earth for a purpose and He has a role for you to play in the world, a niche for you. You discover that niche by discovering what you are good at, finding your talents. [A Spiritual Gift is given to each of us as a means of helping the entire church, the social media network, prayer groups and sessions] -- 1 Corinthians 12:7. Here we have both the fact that every believer is supernaturally given a Spiritual Gift and the truth that that Gift is supposed to be used to minister. Now, if you have not discovered what your Gift is or if you have discovered it, but are not using it, it is no wonder you are becoming bored in your faith walk. You need to discover what you are good at and then find the place where you can use it in that way. One of the purposes of your church is to help you find your niche in life. YHVH created His Church to help you discover your Talents and Gifts. Begin today using what you already know that you are gifted at and build from there.

Salvation is found not in works, but in the unbelievable kindness of God's mercy.

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