Enthusiasm

Etymologically, the English word enthusiasm comes from the Greek word enthousiazein, "to be possessed by a god." Isn’t this exactly what is meant by the title we use for Yeshua? He was “the Christ” (Christos), anointed or saturated by Spirit. To say he was “spirit possessed” is a connotation we want to avoid in modern English, but to realize that he was “possessed by Spirit” is more precise, and very close to the original meaning for enthusiasm. Tolle, in his new book, A New Earth, points out that anyone possess by God (or by Spirit) is sustained or empowered by a wave of creative energy, and what one must do is “ride” that wave (302). Is this not what we are meant to experience as followers of the Messiah, the Anointed One? As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Nothing great has ever been achieved without enthusiasm.” Without Spirit, there is nothing of significance that we can do “by ourselves,” but to be christianos (followers of the Christ), and possessed by the same Spirit, we can experience the flow of deep spiritual energy that lifts us like a wave, and which we can learn to ride.