Dear Fellowship of the Burning Heart:

The members of this fellowship must possess one qualification, one quality, that is our defining attribute: passion.

If you join this fellowship and exhibit this quality you had better expect the following responses: avoidance, shunning, skepticism, fear, deflection of certain topics and discussions, rejection, ridicule, and more. When people see that gleam in your eye when you discuss your passion, most will run, duck or disappear. No one wants to be subjected to a passionate person. Passionate people are the most misunderstood people on the planet.

What you need to know about these strange people:

1. They ARE NOT lunatics or fanatics as most people define the term.

Passionate people are rational, coherent, and thoughtful. They are also personable, humorous, and humble. Most are not so consumed by their passion that they talk about it incessantly, revert to it in every conversation, or pressure others to get on board.

2. They ARE NOT single issue people.

Passionate people have identified what is most important to them and that becomes their focus, but they understand that it must be kept in balance, because life is about balance. What is important is important but it is not everything.

3. They ARE NOT seeking to make their passion compulsory.

Passionate people understand that the choice they have consciously made and are diligently pursuing is a PERSONAL and INDIVIDUAL decision. They realize that they may be able to present their choice for your consideration, offer compelling evidence for the choice they have made, and encourage you to make the same choice, but the CHOICE remains with YOU.

4. They ARE NOT ignorant of the complexity of life.

Sharing in this life, they, like other NORMAL people, have problems, difficulties, and challenges. They have setbacks, are plagued by complacency, and regret their lapses from passion. They know how difficult it is to maintain intensity amid these distractions, yet they persist in the pursuit.

5. They ARE NOT a threat to be feared.

Most people fear passionate people because they don’t want to be confronted with the fact that they, unlike the passionate person, have no compelling reason for living, no single most important pursuit. The fear is not what the passionate person will do to you but what the passionate person will make you face. When we witness the passionate embrace of two lovers, often we are not so much embarrassed by their behavior, as we are ashamed, disappointed or wishful, because we have no such passion in our lives.

6. They ARE NOT a force to be ignored.

Take note of the passionate person. That person is always more likely to achieve the goal, accomplish the mission, follow through with the task. The compelling agent is present: passion. It is passion that drove Nehemiah to press forward against formidable odds to to build a wall and rebuild a nation. It is passion that drove Paul to press on in presenting the gospel to the Jew first and also to the Gentiles. Passion has been at the heart of every faithful servant of God. Faith and passion go hand in hand.

7. They ARE people who understand that some issues are more important than others, that a few issues are monumental, and that some things are worth giving your life for, even dying for.

Having grasped the focal point of life, the single most important truth, the life or death issue, they will not be sidetracked, deterred, distracted, bought off, stopped or silenced in their pursuit. They are rare, for having found the “pearl of great price” they have sold all they have to possess it. They have denied themselves, they have taken their cross, they have made their stand. Putting aside what lies behind, they “press toward the mark of the high calling of Jesus Christ.” None of these things move them and the don’t count their lives dear unto themselves (see Acts 20:24). They want to finish the course knowing that they did their best, gave their all, remained true to the cause. They make their mark precisely because of their passionate pursuit. They are a force to be reckoned with.

Tozer wrote about the hope that he saw in the darkness of his day in the Preface to The Pursuit of God:

In this hour of all-but-universal darkness one cheering gleam appears: within the fold of conservative Christianity there are to be found increasing numbers of persons whose religious lives are marked by a growing hunger after God Himself. They are eager for spiritual realities and will not be put off with words, nor will they be content with correct ’interpretations’ of truth. They are athirst for God, and they will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep at the Fountain of Living Water. This is the only real harbinger of revival which I have been able to detect anywhere on the religious horizon. It may be the cloud the size of a man’s hand for which a few saints here and there have been looking. It can result in a resurrection of life for many souls and a recapture of that radiant wonder which should accompany faith in Christ, that wonder which has all but fled the Church of God in our day. But this hunger must be recognized by our religious leaders.