"My zeal has consumed me, because my enemies have forgotten Your words." (Psalm 119:139)
Literally, "My zeal destroys me..." I can understand the feeling to some extent, but there is also a caution here to us zealots. I have written before that when people say someone has gone through "burn out," they were not doing the work of Jesus. The work of Jesus Christ does not "burn out." Neither can we say His work,"destroys me"; only, "wood, hay, and stubble," burn, and only Satan destroys. But zeal for, "Your words"? How can one be too zealous for, "The Word of God"? Oral Roberts once said, "What people call fanaticism today, was common life in the Early Church." Grant us, Lord, that "common life."
I want to share something with you from a sermon of the great American Evangelist, Dwight Moody. He shares that someone once said to him, "You are too zealous. You do more harm than good. There's such a thing as having too much zeal." Moody goes on to say, "Have zeal, if it is good zeal. I would rather have zeal without knowledge than knowledge without zeal. Don't let these conservative men scare you out of your wits. Zeal without knowledge! I pity those men who have great knowledge and no fire back of it. If you've got your head full of knowledge, get up and go."
The word for, "zeal," in the Hebrew and Greek mean, "jealousy," or, "jealous." The call today is for the Church to be zealous, "jealous," to guard with faithfulness and sobriety the Gospel and Words of the Kingdom. Too much of Christendom has, "forgotten Your words," and they will accuse you and me of too much zealousness. As for me, I pray for a, "zeal has consumed me," in God's sense, a zeal for, "The Word of God," Who is Jesus Christ, and His, "God-Breathed," Words.
Father, in Jesus' Name, help me to discern between zeal which destroys me and zeal which serves You. Amen.
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I will be in Washington, DC for Yom Kippur this year.
When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2
"Looking unto Jesus"
Hebrews 12:2
