“If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm,” Vince Lombardi once said. Vince Lombardi was a famous football coach who was passionate about his game, and demanded that his players share his zeal and enthusiasm. Any player who didn’t play his heart out for the team did not last long.
It is interesting that the word enthusiasm comes from two Greek words, “en” (which is our word “in”) and “theos” (the Greek word for “God”). So to be enthusiastic means to have God inside. We who believe in God have every reason to be enthusiastic because of the wonderful hope that God has given us. The question is, just how fired with enthusiasm are we? Are we excited about the Truth, about our hope of being granted an immortal body in the Kingdom of God, and about our belief in the soon coming of our Lord? If these things do not fill us with enthusiasm, what would it take for us be fired up for the Truth? It is sobering to think that if a human employer would fire us for lack of enthusiasm, what about our Heavenly Employer?
We live in a world that is growing more and more desperate. The Bible forecasts a time when “men’s hearts [will be] failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth,” and we can see how accurately this description applies to our age. Men who are in the know understand how precarious is the situation our world is in. Mankind now has the ability to destroy the human race off the face of the earth. Global warming threatens to submerge coastal regions and islands as the polar icecaps melt; although the problem is being discussed in high places, it is mostly all talk with little effective action being taken. Hatred and violence are increasing, especially hatred of the Jews. The president of Iran has denied that the Holocaust ever happened and has vowed to wipe Israel off the map. There is no doubt that the morals of the world are sinking to the levels of the days of Noah, and of Sodom and Gomorrah. Truly this wicked world is ripe for destruction. As Jesus points out in Luke, it is a time of distress of nations, with no way out.
Jesus tells us about the days in which we are now living: “The nations are angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.” If it were not for our hope, we could be filled with doom and gloom, but because we know that the Lord will destroy those who would destroy the earth, we have a hope that the world does not have. Once baptized, we have been purchased, says Peter, by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we belong to him and he is our commander-in-chief and our Lord. Not only is he taking care of us now, but also he is preparing us for positions of responsibility in the future age — when we will inherit the promises and reign with him in the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world. Are we excited about the future, when the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea? We should be filled with enthusiasm because we have so much to be enthusiastic about.
Enthusiasm is contagious. Are we a carrier? Are we spreading our enthusiasm for the Truth to all around us? We have so much to be thankful for. Jeremiah described the fire that was in his heart this way: “If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” Knowing what we know, and seeing how events are right on track for the Lord’s return, how can we not enthusiastically share our hope with others? We know that the Lord will bring peace and righteousness to this troubled wicked world in which we now live.
We don’t have much more time to show the world and our Lord just how enthusiastic we are about the Truth and the things that are about to take place. On Vince Lombardi’s team, those who lacked enthusiasm were in danger of being fired. We belong to Christ, and we want to stay on his team. Let us fill ourselves with the true meaning of enthusiasm — God within! Just as Jeremiah could not hold God’s message in, let us share our hope with our friends and neighbors. We know that “the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is long suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” Let us reach out to those outside and share the gospel with them so that they can repent and not perish.
Like Jeremiah, we should have in our hearts a fire burning so hot that we cannot contain our enthusiasm. Then we will share our hope of the kingdom with others. Let us enthusiastically spread the message to all we meet, hoping that we will infect them with the same excitement that we feel about the return of our Lord. He will make right all the things that are wrong in this world. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One