Paul advises Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:6 to “rekindle” the fire of the gift of God in him. If we accept that God made us for lives of intensity, then we might ask: “Why don’t we see more people living with fire in their lives?” In this final session on rekindling our own flame, we recognize the role of sustained passion in fueling that fire.
1. Passion leaks. Describe a time in your life when you were excited about something but somehow lost that passion. Why do you think passion leaks?
2. Passion is fueled when we find something significant to pursue. How did you end up doing the profession or work that you now do?
3. Why do you continue to do this work? What helps rekindle your passion for this pursuit? What are some of the challenges?
4. Paul uses the language of athletic training and equipment to describe the role of Scripture in sustaining our passion. Read 2 Timothy 3:16-17. List the roles of Scripture lined out in these verses. Discuss how each of these roles can equip us for sustained intensity?
5. What specific Scripture(s) has equipped you to better live the way of Jesus in the world.
6. Brian McLaren has written that reading the Bible is like eating a fish: “Enjoy the meat that's easy to eat first; come back and work on the bones later if you're still hungry.” Do you think this is true? How could this advice help someone who feels inadequate to study Scripture? What are some of the ways we can “work on the bones later?”
7. Passion comes from having a significant message for our lives to proclaim. What is the heart of the Christian message that you want people to hear from you? Why do you think passion helps people hear the message?
What message do you think your life is sending? What one thing could you change about your life in order to tell a better story with it? What might help you make this change?
Read the following written by Oscar Romero. Then, do some research online about Romero’s life. How do the events of his life and the words that he has written inspire you to live with passion?
It helps now and then to step back and take a long view. The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church’s mission. No set of goals an objectives include everything.
This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water the seeds already planted knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing this. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.
God, our lives have passion when they are connected to your passion for us. Give us a sense of calling to use our lives to pursue things of significance. Encourage us as we mold our lives according to what you say in the Scriptures and through each other. Equip us for sustained intensity so that our lives might proclaim a message worth hearing to a world that need to know of your passion for them. May our passion sustain a fire in us that burns for the world to see. Amen.