Z is for...

    is for zeal.



I'm fairly convinced that most everyone is passionate about something.  The musically inclined close their eyes and devour the notes that emanate from instruments.  Art lovers browse galleries looking at each work and finding the beauty and multiple meanings within a painting.  Athletes spend hours perfecting the shot, practicing the play, preparing their bodies for quick reactions.  When an individual finds something worthy of this passion, they don't approach it lackadaisically but instead with great fervor and zeal.

Indeed, just as many hobbies and interests require great attention and effort from their aficionados, so it should be with followers of Christ.  In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis writes:

"Christ is the Son of God.  If we share in this kind of life we also shall be sons of God.  We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us.  He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has -- by what I call 'good infection.'  Every Christian is to become a little Christ.  The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else" (p. 176-177).

If the purpose of the Christian life is to become more like Christ, why can we as Christians find areas in our own lives that fail to approach this calling with great zeal?  Just as an infection spreads from one to another like wildfire, giving one's heart to God must ignite within us an insatiable desire to walk more and more like Him every day of our lives.  I love the great emotion with which Paul speaks of His desire to grow in Christ in Philippians Chapter 3.  What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.  I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.  I want to know Christ - yes to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3: 8-11)

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If there is ever a day that I approach any worldly endeavor with more zeal and passion than my walk with Jesus, may I always be set right again upon the path with Him.  As the lyrics of a popular Third Day song state, "nothing compares to the greatness of knowing You Lord."  No riches, no level of success, and no popularity or fame can compare or satisfy.  We weren't created to place our hearts and our best attentions elsewhere.  In the deepest, truest places of my soul, I find a longing that always draws me back to the foot of the cross with my eyes turned heavenward.