Passion for the Game

 

“Never be lacing in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.”

—Romans 12:11

I can still see him: a little boy, Bobby Martin, running the bases all alone after the church softball league had finished their game. Of course, no one would have allowed him to play in the actual softball game. He was too young to have what it would take to play effectively—except for one thing: Bobby had passion.

In Scripture, the word for “passion” is “zeal.”¹ The word “zealous” comes from the same Latin root as the word “jealous.” In our zeal, we are to be jealous for the Lord and careful to do our best work for Him.

The Puritan, Samuel Ward, likens zeal to fire. He writes:²

Zeal leaps over all obstacles as fire passes from house to house. Before it all of God’s enemies fall… It is ever climbing and aspiring higher; aiming beyond that which was before and aiming on toward perfection… Fire cannot be long smothered; it will either find a vent or go out.

Often, others will think of us Evangelical Christians as too strait-laced, or as goody-two-shoes, if we exhibit genuine zeal for God and His church. When the Holy Spirit at Pentecost came to the first church, flames of fire appeared and rested on all of those present in the room. As these newly Spirit-filled disciples went out and began to speak in the languages of the throngs of foreign people gathered in Jerusalem, the outsiders mocked them and asked if they were drunk. Today, God still wants His church to “burn” with the fire of Pentecost.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:19, Paul tells the early church:

Do not put out the Spirit’s fire.

We would do well to check for passion in our lives. And then, if necessary, ask God to rekindle that flame, so that we can serve Him with the kind of zeal that leaps from person to person with the flaming power of the Holy Spirit.

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1 The King James Version of Scripture renders the word “passion” as “not slothful.”

2 Ward, Samuel (author) and Richard Rushing, editor. Voices from the Past: Puritan Devotional Readings. Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2009. Pp. 141, 142.