Holy Passion: In Action

By Sarah Wiatr

Do you believe you were born to change the world?

And do you think its actually possible?

These are two questions to ask yourself before you even read this book. This is because this book is for those whose aim is to make a difference in this world. Its for those who are unsatisfied with allowing darkness, injustice, and hopelessness to enslave people and who want to be part of a counter-culture attack that brings true freedom. Now, is this book for you?

I will say this: We need you. We need as many people as we can get to join a generation that is called to action.

Do you know Jesus and are seeking what it means to follow Him in a deeper, more radical way? Are you looking for ways to make your faith come alive? Do you want your life to have meaning? Have you longed to see Gods kingdom come? Is your soul hungry for more? Will you be willing to give whatever it takes to see transformation come to you and the people around you? In my own reflection to answer all these questions, I believe there is a key. It is something called holy passion. Its a holy passion for Jesus that fills you and causes movement in ways you have never experienced before.

Embrace a new journey of holy passion in action. It will be one you will never forget.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781512767766

Sarah Wiatr

Sarah is a teacher, speaker, author, advocate, and volunteer who is passionate to see change in the world around her. She enjoys going on adventures and exploring in the outdoors. She currently teaches elementary school students in Edmonton.

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Copyright © 2016, 2017 Sarah Wiatr.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, Copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-6775-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-6774-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-6776-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016920480

WestBow Press rev. date: 1/3/2017

Contents

Foreword

Part I Holy Passion

Chapter 1 Kingdom Key

Chapter 2 Fuel Your Passion

Chapter 3 Holiness from the Inside Out

Chapter 4 Envision a Revival Fire

Part II In Action

Chapter 5 Passion in the Mud

Chapter 6 The Best of Both Worlds

Part III Mission: Discipleship

Chapter 7 When the Word Hits the Street

Chapter 8 Action-Packed

Chapter 9 Just Right

Chapter 10 Releasing the Real Deal

Part IV Win the World for Jesus

Chapter 11 Radical Routine

Chapter 12 This Is the Generation

For my family

Foreword

If we believe what we hear from and see on our culture’s news outlets, this generation is in trouble. Never before has there been a generation so educated, rich in resources, and globally aware and connected, and never has there been a generation so under attack.

On the global front, the world’s fastest-growing crime is fast becoming a symbol of the evil that is raging against them. Over 27 million slaves have been trafficked in the world—even though the legal slave trade was abolished by a previous generation. While those slaves pray for their freedom, we see, instead of an answer to their prayers, an epidemic of porn addiction, sexual assault, and internal oppression (depression and anxiety)—taking our best hope for saving the world and enslaving them as well.

Turning people into commodities is perhaps the greatest of all crimes, and the inevitable outcome of human greed and a lack of community among the world’s wealthiest people. While children starve to death, this generation moans about having to eat their vegetables and spends copious amounts of time and effort on looking better. While external pressures make a generation on the other side of the world worry about what they will eat and whether they can go to school or if they will receive their basic human rights, our Western selves struggle with anxiety, eating disorders, low self-esteem, and self-harm. What is happening?

We are living in precarious times. And every generation has to face its own truth. To ignore the past is to repeat it. But to face it is to challenge evil with the power of love. Yet how can this be done? I believe that Sarah Wiatr has pinpointed what is required: holy passion. Surely, a generation that has applied the eternal flame of God’s perfect love to their own struggles will be able to embrace purity as a way of life. With hearts and minds made clean by God’s Holy Spirit, they can hear the clarion call to storm the forts of darkness and get to the business of applying that perfect love to the broken hearts of this generation. Their internal freedom will be a sign to the enslaved to bring about a new exodus from the sex industry. Their experience of mercy will be used as a means by which they will alleviate human suffering on the planet. Their own understanding of being known and wanted will be the secret to combatting the brutal realities of a commercialized world. Their lives will be filled to overflowing to help stop extreme poverty. The result will be an increased hunger for God’s kingdom on the earth.

I believe Sarah is amplifying a holy call to a holy people for a holy time. Now is the time for holy passion to ignite a flame of revival in a generation called to be the change. I can’t wait to see how Holy Passion helps spread the flame. May God’s kingdom come.

Danielle Strickland

PART I

Holy Passion

CHAPTER 1

Kingdom Key

A Personal Note

Before we begin, I have to let you know that God loves you and wants to give you the best things that come from His heart. I believe this for you and for me. I pray that every word of Holy Passion will be life-giving, regenerating, and reviving, leading you to grow in the grace of God and in your relationship with Him. Here’s the story of how holy passion began for me.

One hot summer day four years ago, I was walking along a dirt road leading away from the beach. The day was over on the beach at Bible camp, but a new journey was just beginning.

Just as a pebble is dropped into a glass of water—plop—and then sits there at the bottom, sits there, and sits there, two words that the Lord placed on my heart that day, holy passion, plopped to the bottom and sat there. In an instant, these two words rocked my world.

What is holy passion? you might ask. I had yet to find out. The search began.

Within the year, my prayer became, Fill me with holy passion. I was hungry for what the Lord wanted to give me. I began asking different people and leaders in my life if they could define holy passion for me. I had no preconceptions on the topic, and my initial feelings were that holy passion was so big that it might be almost indefinable. I mean, holiness is huge and passion is wild. Putting the two together is a huge and wild thing.

In my search, I read a definition of a soldier for the Lord: "a covenanted warrior exercising holy passion to win the world for Jesus."

Holy passion is given for the purpose of winning the world for Jesus. It’s this peculiar combination of holiness and passion in someone’s life that creates the fire in the soul that is required for living out the kingdom of God on earth. I deduced that once a Jesus follower is filled with holy passion, it’s as if his or her heart ignites for the lost, hurting, and broken of the world. Holy passion must be what Jesus had. Jesus must have lived holy and passionately in the pursuit of God and His ultimate plan for the world.

Holy passion must be rooted in everything Jesus did and the way He lived His life. It must be filled with radical love, compassion, justice, mercy, and hope, all activated by His grace through faith.

The world as it is today needs hope to ignite the souls of humankind. Holy passion in action in the life of a disciple of Jesus is part of the hope the world needs. Holy passion must therefore be a movement of believers unified, not living it alone but within a community of Christians who are committed to living drastically for Jesus. Can you hear Jesus calling us to live in such a way?

I believe God has big plans for this generation and that He wants to give us a holy passion for Him so that we will rise up and carry out those plans. I want to see His plans manifest. I want to see His kingdom unfold. I want to see you and other believers around the world loving and simply doing the will of God in complete freedom. I don’t want anyone to miss out on the best journey of their life: following Jesus.

It’s my prayer that Holy Passion will change your life, or at least parts of your life. There’s nothing sweeter than seeing someone grow in their love relationship with Jesus and seeing fruit in their life that changes the world.

Holy Passion will be a tool for you given by the Spirit so you can be a light in dark places, stand up for justice, and proclaim and live the gospel wherever you are. But more than just a tool, holy passion will be a lifestyle you’ll never be able to give up. I guarantee it. Once God has given you a holy passion for Him and His kingdom, no one will ever be able to take that away from you. And have I mentioned that Holy Passion is for everyone?

Hopefully, this is inspiring enough to have you read further. I think there’s something for everyone within Holy Passion. Hopefully, it’ll be able to answer questions you may have about what following Jesus in a radical way looks like practically. Hopefully it helps you understand how to walk in freedom from and victory over the Enemy. Hopefully it’s something different for you than tradition and religion, and it brings about authenticity in your life. Hopefully it gives you things to think and meditate on and things to pray for. But mostly, I hope God will touch your life in places least expected as you seek the more that He has for you. Let’s begin!

A Different Spirit

In Numbers 13–14, spies are sent out to look over the land of promise they are to take by force. Twelve men go and scour the land for forty days, looking to see if the people are strong or weak, and few or many; if the land is good or bad, and rich or poor; and if there are forests or fields.

When the spies return, they tell Moses that the land is good and flowing with milk and honey, but they also say that the people are strong and the cities are fortified. Then the Israelites begin shouting out in discouragement, hopelessness, and defeat.

Finally, a guy named Caleb steps up, quiets all the people, and says something like, Let’s do it. Let’s go up and take the land, because we can overcome! Caleb figures, If the Lord delights in us, then He will bring us into this land (Numbers 14:8). Unfortunately, these ideas are so extreme that the people of Israel want to stone Joshua and Caleb.

After hearing many prayers from the Israelites, the Lord, in His mercy, spares them despite their faithlessness, but He also gives the people a forty-year sentence in the wilderness as a consequence of their lack of faith. About Caleb, He says [who] has a different spirit in him, and has followed me fully, I will bring him into the land (Numbers 14:24). We now know that Caleb and Joshua were the only members of their generation to ever step foot in the land of promise. They were rewarded for their unreserved lifestyle.

A couple of things stand out to me in this story about Joshua and Caleb. First of all, their attitude is the attitude of champions. They recognize God’s call and agree with to go for it. They know that when God has promises to fulfill, He will follow through. They accept that with God all things are possible, so they receive the Spirit of the overcomer.

I believe that Joshua and Caleb in this instance were exercising holy passion for God. They were holy and passionately going for God’s heart for the nation because they were confident that God would help them. They had the characteristics of world changers. They knew God’s will for the people—salvation, love, peace, justice, righteousness, and holiness—and they said, Let’s do it!

For us, there are strongholds and giants in our surrounding lands of bondage, such as addiction, slavery, sickness, and poverty. Perhaps you have had struggles against these strongholds yourself. If we choose to follow the example of Joshua and Caleb, we know God will have us overcome and give us His great promises in the end.

The second thing that stands out to me is that Caleb and Joshua know not only the capability of God but also God’s heart for the people. They know that God delights in them, so why wouldn’t He give them what He says He will give? God’s delight is in us, though we may be weak, small, or unskilled. The important thing is to know the way God feels about you. If you know your value, and if you know that you are His delight, then you’ll trust that His call on your life is good. To be a delight means that you are something to take pleasure in. God takes pleasure in you as you put your hope in Him.

Our destiny is similar to Joshua’s and Caleb’s. This generation is called to have a different spirit, one with a focus wholly on the kingdom of God, and to go after the promises of God. As the face of the old covenant was Moses, who ended up passing on the mantle of this covenant and commission to Joshua, the face of the new covenant is Jesus, who passes on the mantle and commission to His disciples.

Holy Passion focuses on our role as being commissioned to do kingdom work. Be strong and courageous … I am with you, God’s people are told (Deuteronomy 31:6; Joshua 1:8–9 ESV). Holy passion is a key that unlocks and lets loose the prayer of Jesus: Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. As it is in Heaven—yes and amen to that!

In all seriousness, to pray this kingdom prayer is to ask for a lot. Just think, earth like Heaven. Try to imagine what that would look like. It stretches my mind. It’s almost unimaginable. Despite the limitations in our vision, this is Jesus’s desire, and that’s how He teaches us to pray. Yes, it does mean justice done. Yes, it does mean people healed. Yes, it does mean poverty eliminated. Yes, it does mean everyone knowing Jesus. Yes, it does mean evil will run. Yes, it does mean the glory of God shining.

So how do these things come about? The answer is holy passion in action. It’s the key that unlocks the prayers and the desires of Jesus. It’s a kingdom key that opens and unleashes a generation of world changers.

These Are the Keys

Keys are an important part of our lives. The Bible talks about people getting their own set of spiritual keys that open spiritual things. Jesus has them, and his faithful followers have them. How do I know? Revelation 3:7–8 says, "This is the message from the one who is holy and true,