Excitement

By Stephen Leonard

“Be enthusiastic to serve the Lord, keeping your passion toward Him boiling hot! Radiate with the glow of the Holy Spirit and let Him fill you with excitement as you serve Him.” Romans 12:11 TPT

We have all experienced the emotion of excitement. A man is truly excited by his favorite sports team, their games, and their competition. Women are more excited about shopping when having the money to spend or a credit card to use. Primarily male fans of college or pro-sports get wrapped up in their team’s fortunes. Women, on the other hand, love a sale or the opportunity to shop, especially for clothes. This is where the excitement comes to the fore!

Excitement means there is a passion to focus your thoughts and emotions on the source of the excitement. It is not just whether your team wins or loses. The focus is on the competition. It is not focused on whether or not you find the perfect piece of clothing. The excitement lies in the act of shopping itself. Of course, if your team wins, or your shopping has a successful end, it is all the more satisfying! 

Does such excitement and passion extend to your relationship with God and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ? Is your excitement stirred by the opportunity to worship Him, or to spend private, quality time with Him? A comparison of those incentives which stir you to your core is a worthy subject for serious contemplation; it is a most beneficial use of your meditative thought. This is something we all need to do. 

Think about why you get excited and think about what these incentives to excitement offer you in the end, at the conclusion of your life. Do not think, however, only of their eternal worth; think also of the present rewards of such endeavors. Are there immediate rewards in seeking after Christ? Compare those rewards to the excitement of following your team(s) or of the adventure of shopping. And think about what they really do for you as a person. 

The things of this world are naturally more exciting to who you are as a creature of the world. But your spiritual endeavors, which rise above the pattern of this world, are what truly mold your soul, not only in this life, but for eternity. The Apostle Paul wrote: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you might discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable, and perfect.”

You must break the pattern of only worldly excitement in exchange for a greater excitement for God and His Son. It has far bigger ramifications for you than the Broncos or the new outfit. Those things quickly pass. But your love for God never passes. It is an excitement that does not die. The Holy Spirit is the One who energizes your passion for God. Ask Him to light a fire in your soul for the Living God, “whom to know is life eternal.”

Encouragement

“Come thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace; streams of mercy, never ceasing, calls for songs of loudest praise. Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above; praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it, mount of God’s unchanging love.”

(1st verse of Robert Robinson’s hymn, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” 1758)