[Originally posted Jan. 10, 2006]
Proclaiming the glory of God and discipling others to become genuine worshipers and devoted disciples of the Lord Jesus should be the all-consuming passion of my life. Yet I find myself strangely caught up in the “blahness” of every day subsistence in the world around me. Rather than making great strides as a resolute pilgrim with an eternal focus, I lose my edge and succumb to the laziness of inertia, to the entanglements of earthly responsibilities, to the delights of living to eat rather than eating to live, and to the down time of sports and entertainment.
It is helpful to get back to the picture of Christ in the temple as He comes upon the money-changers who have perverted His Father’s House into a place of business. Aroused with righteous indignation, He furiously drives out the rabble and demonstrates His zeal for His Father’s house. This confrontation in the temple was repeated both at the beginning of Christ’s public ministry (John 2:12-25) and at the conclusion right before going to the Cross (Matt. 21) – creating thematic bookends for His ministry of being about His Father’s business. His ministry involved the key elements of:
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proclaiming the truth of God’s Word
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reaching out in compassion and mercy to a lost world
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discipling those around Him in ever-increasing circles of intimacy
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submitting to His Father’s plan to accomplish all righteousness
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having come to “do his will“
My desire is to re-capture more of that intensity and passion to have my life consumed with zeal for the house of God.