The last thing we want in our homes is a passionless family Bible time, passionless prayer, and passionless singing. What a tragedy when we sense the Word has become “ho-hum” in our own lives, let alone in the lives of our children!

How You Know When You Have Lost Passion

You know that you have lost your passion when prayers become the same rote thing — just empty words parroted in a mindless fashion. You know that you have lost your passion when there is little interest in hearing a sermon on a Sunday night or a church devotion on a Wednesday night. You might find your children falling asleep during the passionate sermons of John Piper, George Whitfield, Charles Spurgeon, Dwight L. Moody, or John Knox.

This kind of spiritual anemia is scary and excruciatingly discomforting. It might even be the seeds of apostasy in your family life. No Christian parent wants to think that his children or grandchildren might wander from the true faith, and walk the path of destruction.

We want to feel the impact of God’s Word. We want to feel the Word alive in us, doing something to us, and bearing fruit in us. We want to see it’s relevance for us. We want our children to hear the voice of the Shepherd in this Word, and the application of it to them by the Holy Spirit.

You Can’t Fake it so Don’t Try

You can’t just fake enthusiasm either. We might hope that a little fake enthusiasm might warm the heart, but true passion and love for God must work from the inside out. It would not be a pretty sight to witness a man engaged to be married faking an enthusiasm or love for his wife. The very thought of such a pretense is monstrous.

How do we gain or regain a passion for God’s Word?

1. Make this a matter of prayer. Ask for the Holy Spirit to make the Word come alive. Ask Him to open your eyes that you may “behold wondrous things in your Word” (Ps. 119:18).
2. Consider the personal nature of God’s Word. The Holy Spirit must enable you to hear the Word as if God is speaking to you personally. In fact, it is very important to God that you listen to His Son. When Jesus took upon Himself human flesh, God the Father had one message He wanted to be sure that we received. It was a message from God to you and to me.

 “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!” (Luke 9:35)

3. Consider the personal nature of the Speaker. It is The Word who speaks the word. Jesus is the very Word of God, who has come to communicate a message from God to us. He speaks to us in His every story, in His every revelation, in His every emotion, in His actions and reactions, in His crucifixion and resurrection. He speaks to us as He speaks to His Apostles. He is God’s love-letter to us.

A student reading a textbook on Nuclear Physics does not run to the book to hear a personal message from the author to himself. The pouring out of intellectual facts is not taken in the same way that a betrothed soldier reads the love letters from His wife to be while he is on the field.  

4. Upon your life, DO NOT neglect the reading of the Word of God! For a period of time, you may experience a dullness or a lack of understanding. Don’t let that discourage you. Rather subject yourself to the preaching and the reading of the Word of God. Pray through it. And you will find that “faith comes by hearing the Word of God.” (Rom. 10:17)
   

Is there any other word like this?

Compare the words of God to all of the other words spoken by men on earth. Of course, there is no comparison. These are words of life. The seed grows up into us, and we begin to bear fruit after a while. When you see what this Word does in your life and the lives of your children, you will never get enough of it.

What more do you want in life than to see your children transformed by the Word of God, through the Spirit of God? We know what sin looks like. We know what the lack of love, joy, and peace looks like. It is everywhere around us. Let us settle for nothing less than heart, mind, and life transformations for our families by the Word of God.  

Amen?