One of the beautiful things we will learn and be taught when we come to Jesus is how important it is that our passions be purified. We were born with passions that define our life courses and choices. Sometimes we pick some passions from our backgrounds and experiences, but we take them unrefined, in its raw and impure form and until a purification is done, it is just as harmful as a person living life without passions.

Moses is an immediate example of a person with raw, unrefined passions. He hated injustice, he hated it even more that his people had been the ones of the receiving end, so what did he do? In his anger and hatred for injustice, he committed murder to defend the passion he had burning in his heart. His passion for justice and the oppressed was not misplaced at all, because as we saw later in time, God put that in him for a purpose; to be the leader who will lead them out of slavery and to the promised land. In the pure form of his passion, this was what God had in mind.

Until our passions are refined and purified, we cannot blame God for the consequences of the actions we perform with unrefined passions. God took Moses through a season of preparation which included purifying his passion before taking him back to his purpose to fight for the release of Gods people from Pharoah.

Those 40 years He spent away in Midian were necessary for the journey that he had to face ahead. If you observed, Moses still displayed “passionate anger” at different season of the journey to the promised land, but the Holy Spirit helped me understand that it could have been a lot worse and more frequent if not for the time away in Midian which God used to work on his passions.

It is a beautiful thing to be passionate honestly. We serve a God who is so passionate about everything He has created, but we must be careful that our passions are not unrefined and impure. If not, they possess the ability to cause more havoc than we know. Look all around the world today, people passionately doing evil every single day and justifying themselves for it because “I’m passionate about it”, but not even passion was given to be a leeway to sin, but given to advance further the kingdom of God.

God fuels our passions for His kingdom and His glory, nothing else.

God might be beckoning on us to check up on our sincere passions and be sure that they are not being used in a raw and unrefined state, because it can be counterproductive.

One of my favourite musicians, Victoria Orenze sang a song titled “On fire”, the first verse says “Precious Holy Spirit, we’re in need of You, come purify our passions Jesus, Lord come and make us new”. It is not coincidental that she linked it to a call for the Holy Spirit first.

It is the spirit of God that refines and purifies this passion, so we must daily call on Him to purify the things that keep our hearts ablaze.

Our passions must reflect the character and nature of God, even in its simplest forms.