Thoughts From Romans 12 - Part 5

  Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13 Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.  Rom.12:11-13

           Are you on fire for Jesus? Have there been times in your life where all you could think about was the Lord? My guess is that most of us have experienced that in our lives either on a mission trip or going on a youth retreat or maybe right around the time of your salvation. Unfortunately, the passion or zeal wanes over time. Why is that?

         I think it's a little like love. You meet a person of the opposite sex, you have a memorable date with them, and you can't wait until you see them again. You start talking to them on the phone for hours, even fall asleep at night talking. When you are around your friends you show them his or her pictures and you are present, but your mind is elsewhere. You get married eventually and you start having kids, taking care of a house, working a job to pay the bills and when you see the love of your life it almost has become a joint partnership in fighting life together. The passion is gone or at least on a "back burner" waiting for a vacation with just the two of you. Isn't this what happens with our passion for Jesus? So many things take up our time and life that our relationship with Jesus gets put on hold waiting for a revival conference or retreat to reignite it.

        Paul gives some hints in this passage on how to keep the flame going and it could be summarized with these two words - prayer and fellowship, or if you want to make it one theme - pray with fellow believers. I would have to say that when I was going my strongest in the Lord, I met with guys before work and prayed with them. We would spend a good half hour on our knees before the day started and pray and the next day before prayer, we would share the "God things" that we saw as a result of our prayers the previous day.

        What, not a 7-step plan to keep your flame burning for the Lord? Nope, just one. Find a fellow believer and meet with them for prayer every day, if you can. It works!