To Encourage You

Titus 2:14 “Jesus Christ, Who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” 

What fires you up? What is it that you are passionate about?  I love to fish and hunt.  It’s something I am eager to talk about with anyone who will listen.  More than that, it’s something I don’t want to just talk about.  It’s something I want to do.  Maybe you’re the same way – or it’s some other hobby or cause for which you are passionate.  There’s a word for that passion. It’s the word “zeal.”  It means “to have an eagerness and ardent interest in pursuit of something: fervor.” 

Zeal can be directed at things like hunting and fishing, that are simply hobbies, or it can be directed at things that have a moral consequence.  A person can be passionate about another person.  When that person is his or her own spouse, it can be a good thing, motivating one to pursue what is best for the one they love.  However, when that person is another person’s spouse, it can be a very evil thing. 

At the time of Noah, we are told that the people of that day were zealous for evil. In Genesis 6:5 we are told that “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”  But then this sobering statement from Jesus: “For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man (Matthew 24:37).”  Here Jesus is speaking about the future. In fact, He’s referring to our future, for the coming of the Son of Man hasn’t occurred yet.  But while this will indeed be the case in the end times, it’s not what Jesus desires for us. 

In the verse above we are told that the reason that Jesus died for us was to “redeem us from all lawlessness,” such as the lawlessness that was so prevalent in Noah’s day, “and to purify for Himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.”  There’s that word “zeal.”  God’s will for us is that we be zealous “for good works.”  In other words, a mark of a person that has been saved by the power of Christ will be an eagerness to obey the Lord.  Because he or she is passionate with a fervent love for their Lord, they will be passionate to live a life that pleases Him. When opportunities come to serve the Lord in ways for which He has gifted them, they will be fired up about it. They won’t be reluctant. They won’t serve Him just out of a sense of duty. They won’t grudgingly do what they think is the right thing. They will be zealous to do it! 

Jesus demonstrated this attitude right after He shared the gospel with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4.  It was while his disciples had left to go and buy food that this encounter occurred.  In that precious moment Jesus spoke to her of her sin and how to be free from it.  He told her about the living water that He alone could give, and that those who drank that water would never thirst again.  This water that He spoke of was spiritual water, a metaphor for eternal life.  After this encounter, the woman was so fired up that she couldn’t stop talking about it to her friends and neighbors.  We are told that “Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.”  The zeal of Christ became her zeal.   

It was after this encounter that the disciples returned to Jesus with food. They knew that Jesus, like them, had been not only thirsty, but hungry as well.  And so we are told that “Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, ‘Rabbi, eat.’ But He said to them, ‘I have food to eat that you do not know about.’ So the disciples said to one another, ‘Has anyone brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.’” In other words, Jesus took this occasion to teach His disciples that it wasn’t food for which He was most hungry, but “to do the will of Him Who sent me.” And what was that will?  It was, “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). That’s why it was always the kingdom of God that Jesus was talking about. That’s why He was always loving people and thereby opening their hearts to hear the gospel. That’s why He endured the cross “for the joy that was set before Him” (Hebrews 12:1). For you see, it was obedience to God’s will that was His passion. To speak of the gospel and to walk in the way of obedience was that for which He was zealous above all else. It thrilled His heart.  And that’s exactly the zeal that He wants for each and every one of us.  It should truly mark us if we have been “redeemed from all lawlessness” and given a pure heart with the desires that are the desires of our God.

So, does that describe you?  Do you have a zeal like this?  If you know Jesus and truly love Him it is this zeal, the same zeal that drove that Samaritan woman to tell everyone she knew about the Jesus who had saved her, that should characterize your life and mine.  And we should encourage one another in this holy zeal of God.  As Paul told his protégé Timothy “I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you,” for that’s the kind of flame that burned in the heart of Christ and that’s the kind of flame that should mark the followers that He died on the cross to redeem.