The Roller-Coaster We Call Zeal

Zeal Is Like a Being On A Roller-Coaster Start off with great excitement. A euphoric high with the anticipation of the thrills approaching and the heart beating excitement that will give one a feeling often not a part of daily life. You get high and then come down low but then you go back up and down and up and down……… But as long as you are on the right track, you will be safe.

Introduction Zeal is a quality in a person that keeps them fired up to work diligently in doing what needs to be done. Zeal is an attitude of never give up. Zeal demonstrates great concern Zealously is described by eagerness. Let us notice some things about zeal.

Gaining Your Zeal Perhaps you might remember when you first became a Christian. You were excited by what God had done for you that you dedicated your life to God and prayed, offering your service to Him. You were excited by just about anything that was helping you spiritually. You were even so excited, you shared with others what had happened to you.

Losing Your Zeal But after a short time, that excitement went away. Perhaps others kept their distance because they did not want to talk about spiritual things. You got discouraged when people would avoid you because you wanted to talk about the Bible, and they did not. Perhaps you just fell into the routine that all the other Christians were in, and you saw no need for zeal anymore.

Find The Zeal That Was Lost As we grow and mature we make changes. Hopefully one of those changes is the realization that we have lost our zeal. But getting it back is not an easy task. Once again, what we need to do is to dedicate our lives to the Lord again, and pray that He will forgive you, and ask for strength to find the zeal you once had.

Going UP And DOWN Zeal like our faith has its high’s and low’s. Sadly some never got that initial high like they should have, and have never been spiritually minded enough to make a difference. 2 Kings 10:16 Jehu spoke to an ally and said: “Come with me and see my zeal for the LORD.”… You might think this was a great king, yet Jehu was just as wicked as they come.

Going UP And DOWN Paul spoke of his Jewish brethren in Romans 10:1-3 “Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge. For not knowing about God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God”.

Going UP And DOWN Zeal is not limited to spiritual things. Those who promote agendas demonstrate great zeal. They are not afraid to stand out in public and advocate their cause, no matter how evil God may see it. Other causes are good and people have zeal about those things as well.

Going UP And DOWN 2 Corinthians 7:11 “For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you; what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter”. The context bears out that these people were evolving into the Christians that they should be.

Going UP And DOWN The reason that God gave grace to mankind. Titus 2:13-14 “looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds”.

Going UP And DOWN The church in Laodicea had such a problem. This was the group neither hot or cold so Jesus spewed them out of his mouth (figuratively, of course) Revelation 3:19 “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; be zealous therefore, and repent”.

Going UP And DOWN Paul explained his own understanding of zeal in himself; Galatians 1:14 “and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions”. Acts 22:3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated under Gamaliel, strictly according to the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, just as you all are today”.

Going UP And DOWN Philippians 3:6 “as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless”. We see that Paul was very zealous. So we can see that we can be zealous for all sorts of things, But, like Paul, we could still be wrong. Let us focus upon the right things by using our zeal.

Conclusion The question we all need is this: When you are down, what can I do to get my zeal up? When you are up, what can I do to get my zeal to stay up? If the Lord wills, we are going to study this subject further and hopefully we can all gain the zeal which will honor and glorify God.