[Steve Myers] What is it that defines your life? This word should be a word that helps define all of our lives because unfortunately oftentimes its possessions, it's our careers, maybe our accomplishments, our activities, and we focus on those things as the things that define us. And yet, when it comes down to doing things God's way, we better have a passion for living everything in a spiritual way, not just a physical sense. And I think that's the challenge that we all face, especially in this new calendar year.

[Darris McNeely] Passion is something that can really define us, and motivate us, and motivate those around us to accomplishment, to enthusiasm, for the project of the team, for the goal of the company, whatever it might be that we're working toward. If we don't have that passion that drives us and gets us out of bed every single day to go to work, to go to the desk, to go to the computer, to go into wherever it is that we do our job and create what we do - we don't have that passion, we're going to stay in bed. We're going to not accomplish exactly what we want. There was an ad campaign a number of years ago that actually kind of motivated me, and I cut that picture out. It had a rumpled bed that someone had just gotten out of, but it was empty, and it said, "What gets you out of bed every morning?" And every one of us has got to find that passion of job, calling, motivation to get out of bed every morning and accomplish something.

[Steve Myers] And to accomplish it for God. We're working for God. He's our ultimate Master. And Paul put it in such a passionate way in Philippians 3:8. Here's what he says, this is New Living Translation, he says, "Everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." You know, is that our perspective that whether it's possessions, whether it's accomplishments, whether it's wealth, Christ comes first. And He defines everything else in our life. Is that what our passion is? In fact, Paul concludes that section by saying, "For His sake, I've discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage so that I could gain Christ." Well, you talk about passion and a passion for living God's way, for putting God first, living His way, and making it a priority in our life to do it.

[Darris McNeely] Yeah, really what he's talking about there is just winnowing down the essentials, getting to the essentials of life and finding that part of life that really gives us the enthusiasm for living, living for God's way of life, it really comes down to understanding our purpose in life. But when we find that, then we can really move forward.

[Steve Myers] That gives purpose to everything that we do. So make it a passionate one.

[Darris McNeely] That's BT Daily. Join us next time.