Passion Before Power 

Text:  Acts 1:  1

How about us giving the devil a migraine headache tonight through our praise and worship!

The longest—and simplest—love letter ever written was the work of a Parisian painter named Marcel de Leclure in 1875. The addressed was Magdalene de Villalore, his aristocratic light of love. The missive contained the phrase “jevous aime” “I Love You” 1,875,000 times—a thousand times the calendar years of the date. The prodigious lover did not pen the letter with his own hand. He hired a scribe. A lazy type could have instructed the secretary: “Write the amatory sentence 1,875,000 times.” But Leclure was too entranced with the sound of the three words. He dictated it word for word and had the hired man repeat it verbatim. All in all therefore the phrase was uttered orally and in writing 5,625,000 times—before it reached its destination. Never was love made manifest by as great an expenditure of time and effort. ^[1]

¹ ‍The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,‍ ² ‍Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen:‍ ³ ‍To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:‍ ⁴ ‍And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. ‍ ⁵ ‍For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.‍

⁶ ‍When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?‍ ⁷ ‍And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.‍ ⁸ ‍But ye shall receive power‍^a‍, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. ^[2]

Tonight we want to marry verse 3 and verse 8 and proclaim that “Power is the result of Passion.”

First of all, we must never take the “ye” out of the great commission.  We have been called as individuals to go into the harvest, (and we are part of the harvest right here), and as individuals we make up the team called the church.

In Pentecost, we hear much about power.  We are on a continual pursuit for the supernatural.  This is good because Paul said we should earnestly seek for the gifts.  We know that God is not comfortable in a box, and Jesus is not comfortable in grave clothes and sepulchers.   So why would we ever want to try and capture God?  It can’t be done anyway, so why try?  God is God.  God is a Spirit who cannot be confined in any way!

Why would we want to put God behind a curtain or in grave clothes.  We sing about power, and we sing about His blood.

Passion is a powerful abandoned  display of emotion. We need more passion in the church. There can be no compassion without passion. Yet at the same time, we must keep compassion strong.  It is a deep awareness of the sufferings of others, coupled with a wish to relieve them.

In this .com generation, we have taken the .com off of compassion and  we are not translating our passion into compassion. If leave here only with passion and we don’t put the .com back on our passion, we will be mission the mark.   Somehow we must empathize with people who are suffering.

Somehow the great commission must become the great compassion.  Jesus mission was fueled by an overwhelming sense of compassion, and our great commission that has been granted to us by almighty God must also be fueled by compassion.

Compassion is the will and passion is the power.  When we have vision x service x passion it = mission!

Our desire is to be apostolic, but when we come into apostolic power, we come into apostolic problems.

If you want to know what apostolic problems are, read the book of Acts!

Our district Superintendent preached to us that the Acts of the people are followed by the Acts of God, then it becomes a cycle where we act again, then we experience the awesome power of God again and again, but there is never a time where God says that it’s time to quit!  When he is done with us He will rapture us out!

Jesus showed himself alive after his passion!  The passion there means His death, but after His passion came the power of the Holy Ghost.  The greatest power ever released to mankind is that which was released at the cross because there would be no infilling of the Holy Ghost without Golgotha!

We Pentecostals often say, “I want more of God’s power.”  That’s good, but passion always comes before power.  If we want more of God’s power, we must have more of His passion! 

If we will get under the burden of passion and let the .com be connected to it to make it compassion, I can declare upon the authority of the Word of Almighty God that we will leave here with more Apostolic power.  But, if we don’t have passion, there will be no power because   there is no waste in God’s economy.

Elijah was a man of like passions.  If we want the power of Elijah, then we must have the passion of Elijah!

We say, “where is the Lord God of Elijah“, and God says, “Where are the Elijah’s of the Lord God?!!!!!!!, where is the passion of Elijah?!!!!!!”

If I can find a man of His passion, I’ll show you a man of His power!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Power is only safe in the hands of love…….compassion!!!!

Someone said, “find you passion and follow it.”  That is some of the best career advise you will ever hear.  There was the woman who was sick with the issue of blood. Many doctors and years passed and she only grew worse in her condition.  One day destiny caused her path to come into the pathway with Jesus.   Her desperate situation and passion caused her to be totally illogical.  We find that Jesus never passed that way again.  This was her one and only opportunity to plug into His power.

Sometimes God comes to us in certain dimensions   where we don’t have any guarantee that He will ever pass this certain way again because God is multi-dimensional.  If we have been praying for power and God is here right now to give it to us, we cannot be nonchalant about what God is wanting to do in us right here, right now!  We cannot afford to miss what the Holy Ghost wants!  You say, what does He want to do in us, and the answer is overwhelmingly, PASSION!  PASSION, PASSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!  You say, ok, What next after passion,

·        POWER, POWER, POWER!!!!!!!You say, ok, What will come after power?  MIRACLES, MIRACLES, MIRACLES!!!!!!!! Ok, what comes after miracles:

·        SOULS, SOULS, SOULS!!!!  You say, ok, so what happens after souls, and this place is packed out?

·        MORE SOULS, MORE SOULS, MORE SOULS!!!!!!!!!!!

You say, ok, what happens after more souls?

Ok, what comes after the world is turned upside down again?

·        Rapture, Rapture, Rapture!!!!!!!!

Ok, what happens after the Rapture?

·        Millennium, Heaven, Eternal Victory!

 

You see Logic said to that woman, you are forbidden by the law to touch Jesus, logic said you are too weak, logic said you have already spent all that you have there is nothing to give Him, logic said, don’t go near Jesus, there is too many people, but she had passion!!

Passion drove that woman beyond logic!!!!!!!

She was surrounded by people, but nothing was going to stop her from going to Jesus!

Jesus said, Who touched me, I felt virtue go out of me.  This is the only time that virtue is translated passion, every other place it is translated, power!  What Jesus was really saying was, what brought the power out of me?  It was the passion of that woman!!

The crowd is not going to stop me, what people think is not going to stop me, logic is not going to stop me, judgmental disciples is not going to stop me, I’m not going stop until I touch Him….and when she did……POWER!!

SHOUT……POWER FOLLOWS PASSION!!!!

YOU MAY HAVE BEEN SEEKING FOR YOUR MIRACLE FOR 12 YEARS, BUT THIS NIGHT IS THE NIGHT THAT YOU ARE GOING TO PRAY THROUGH!!