Here's a passage of Scripture I like to skip over:

"For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ...Their work will be shown for what it is...It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the
quality of each person's work.  If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward...If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved-even though only as one escaping through the flames."  (1 Cor. 3:

That's an unpleasant thing to think about. I mean, what if I spend much of my life missing the point? What if I'm passionate about the wrong things?

It's a question worth asking: What are you passionate about? Golf, football, fashion, art, some hobby, your job?

Passion is inherently visceral.  Passion resides in the gut, not the mind.  When someone is passionate in their relationship with Jesus, we are more inclined to think of John the Baptist than we are of a seminary student.

Passion has the connotation of focus.  One of the great enemies of passion is the cloud of distractions that fill our 20th century minds.  Our lives can underscore this poem,

Some men die by shrapnel,

Some men die in flames,

But most men die inch by inch

Playing little games.

If you're like me, you may tend to compartmentalize rather than focus your life.  We can become spectators to our own demise.  Dizzy from distraction, we can become an example of Bob Pierce's credo: "We never do anything well unless we know for sure what our aim is."

When you die and your life passes before you, what will you want to show Jesus?  As your life's work passes through the fire described in I Corinthians 3, what will burn and what will remain?