Enthusiastic by an Energizing God
Enthusiastic by an Energizing God
I found two big “E” words while reading the latest issue of The Christian Chronicle. The ministry postings said that candidates must be Enthusiastic and Energetic. Of the 8 postings 3 were looking for enthusiastic persons and 2 for energetic ones. To be energetic and enthusiastic are admirable. A 5-minute glance at TV commercials highlights those E words. I thought of proposing at our recent evangelistic committee that a group of us attend the 3rd Thursdays on Main Street. We would jump up and down shouting “Storrs Road Church of Christ” and display our phone number at least 5 times.
Enough of these musings. I am pursuing Paul’s teaching on spiritual gifts in 1 Cor. 12-14 where he addresses problems caused by some who were led astray by an uncontrolled abandonment to spiritual ecstasy [enthusiasts?]. His corrective to this problem of letting worship and ministry be led by practices of their pagan past (12:2) was to emphasize the same Spirit, same Lord and same God who give varieties of gifts for the common good (12:4-7). I saw one of those big E words in verse 6 – “the same God who empowers them all in all of you.” In Greek the word is energon. See the same word in 12:11.
Paul was always pointing his churches to an energizing God. “I toil, struggling with all his energy (energein) that he powerfully works (energoumenan) in me” (Col. 1:29). “You also having been buried with him in baptism in which you all were raised with him through faith in the powerful working (energeias) of God who raised him from the dead” (Col. 2:12). Paul prays for eyes of hearts to be enlightened to know the hope and the immeasurable greatness of his great power toward us who believe, according to the working (energeian) of his great might that he worked (energesin) in Christ whom he raised from the dead (Eph. 1:19-20). In Phil. 2:12-13—after that great hymn in verses 5-11—Paul’s exhorts believers to work out their own salvation for it is God who works (energon) in you to will and to work (energein) his good pleasure.
What does it mean to be energized by God? Paul had a great work ethic of which he once boasted, “I worked harder than them all” and quickly corrected; “Not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Cor. 15:10). He closed that resurrection chapter with the admonition in v. 58, “be always abounding in the work of the Lord knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
—Tom Yoakum