Titus 2:11-14

"For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;
Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."
Titus 2:11-14


Kind of continuing on the good / evil theme... this is interesting to me, especially the "zealous of good works" part... you know, I think most of my life I have thought that the underlying purpose was to get a job, raise enough money to feed a family... learn to be responsible, work hard... and this seems different than that.  Zealous of good works.  I love the sound of that.  I make my life so dramatic sometimes... ugh.  Anyway, this seems better in some ways. :)  Not that it takes away the need for doing all of the rest of it... but it feels like the higher purpose *behind* the mundane (and extraordinarily painful) learning-to-be-responsible stuff.  It's way more fun to be good and nice and go to work every day when you have a secret mission... to find about a b'zillion good works to do. :)  So... I'm on it.  Are you with me? :)
Not to ignore the rest of the selection at all... that's just what struck me.  I guess the soberly part seems like another part of becoming responsible... but I'm sure that it has its good side.  laughter is definitely an escape sometimes, and we need to learn to take serious things seriously.  ... and funny things funnily. :)  heh heh.   anyway... the cool thing is that when we manage the emotional sobriety, and deny ourselves things that are bad for us, we get a taste of that blessed hope... and we will look forward with happy anticipation for the day of the Lord, because we love him and we want to see him... and not look forward to that day with dread, because we know that our addictions will catch up with us.  And you know, we'll have to report to the top agent about how well our secret mission went.... so, make sure you are surreptitiously building some Zion today. :)