Zeal

The passionate commitment of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies will make this happen!
Isaiah 9:7



We read in Isaiah that a king will come who will establish a rule of justice, peace, righteousness—all sorts of good things that we need desperately. Yet throughout history we observe that the evil and the powerful continue to rule with cruelty and greed over the meek and the righteous. Has the king come? Where is his perfect kingdom? How does the zeal, the passionate commitment of the Lord accomplish it?

The zeal of the Lord is beautifully strange. The zeal of the Lord defied the natural order of life and placed the baby Jesus in Mary’s womb. Her frail, human baby was also an eternal King. God’s zeal produced the good and the unexpected. It was perfect. A baby born in complete innocence turned out to be our only hope of escape from the slavery of our sinful nature.

But the zeal of the Lord is also fearsomely strange. The zeal of the Lord also translates into Jesus wrapped not in swaddling cloths anymore but a bloodied purple robe awaiting vicious execution. No longer visited by kings but ridiculed and mocked by sadistic soldiers. This, also, demonstrated God’s zeal: love abused by hatred, compassion spat upon. The zeal of the Lord brought his only beloved Son before the dark hearts of man and the evil of Satan to be brutalized and murdered. Yet it was good, for by the zeal of God’s love for us, we are given a way out of darkness and into the light of God’s love. The zeal of the Lord is astoundingly strange. A battered and bruised dead man rose from the grave making a mockery of all greed, power, and evil. An eternal kingdom of peace, justice, righteousness, and love was secured for all who would open their heart.

The truth is that the zeal of the Lord does accomplish a new kingdom for all those who believe. How will we allow God’s zeal to build his kingdom through us?