by David Scott Robertson
"Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Phinehas son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron the priest has turned my anger away from the Israelites by displaying passionate zeal among them on my behalf. So I have stopped destroying all Israel as I had intended to do in my anger. So tell him that I am making my special covenant of peace with him. In this covenant, he and his descendants will be priests for all time, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the people of Israel.'" - Numbers 25:10-13
God is a zealous God. One of His attributes most certainly is zeal. Zeal is a funny little word that basically describes an attitude of deep devotion or passionate commitment to something or someone.
If you take a few moments and track God's zeal through the scriptures, you'll find it surfacing again and again (Deuteronomy. 29:20; 2 Kings 19:31; Isaiah 26:11; Isaiah 37:32; Isaiah 42:13; Isaiah 59:17; Isaiah 63:15; Ezekiel 5:13; Ezekiel 36:5; Ezekiel 38:19).
It was the zeal of the Lord that accomplished the salvation of the world through the advent of the Messiah, Jesus the Christ:
"Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this" (Isaiah 9:7 NIV).
Jesus, the Son of God, carried on the family tradition by displaying His zeal as He was inaugurating the New Covenant between God and man:
"To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!" His disciples remembered that it is written: 'Zeal for your house will consume me'" (John 2:16-17).
When Jesus was selecting His twelve, the inner circle of disciples that He would personally mentor and commission to carry on after His earthly departure, He selected a man named Simon, a zealot (Luke 6:15). Simon was a militant radical. According to Holman's Bible Dictionary, a zealot was "one who acted with great zeal. The term came to designate a particular segment of the Jewish population who continually tried to overthrow foreign oppression, especially the Roman rule in Palestine."
God exalted a man in the Old Testament named Jehu because this man had a passionate commitment to expunge Baal worship from the land (1 Kings 10:28), a practice that God detested:
"Jehu said, "Come with me and see my zeal for the LORD." Then he had him ride along in his chariot (2 Kings 10:16) en route to assemble and assassinate the priests of Baal.
You see it over and over again in the Bible text, men and women being zealous for the Lord and God exalting and promoting them because of it.
Zeal is good but it must be harnessed for the right cause or person. Proverbs 19:2 warns:
"It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way."
The religious leaders of Jesus' day were indeed zealous, but not for the things that God intended:
"Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness" (Romans 10:1-3).
In his zeal Saul (who later became the apostle Paul) persecuted the Christian church(Philippians 3:6).
The conclusion of the matter is that we can be sincere about something, but be sincerely wrong. Our sincerity, our passion, our commitment, our zeal must be channeled correctly under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to be credited to us as righteousness.
God is still looking for men and women today who possess the unusual quality of passionate zeal so that He can exalt them in due season.
How about it? Are you willing to ask the Lord for the "zeal of God" to consume you? Are you ready to move on to a place of passionate commitment to the cause of Christ? Are you willing to separate yourself from billions of unbelievers and millions of believers by allowing God's passionate zeal to course through your spirit uninhibited by your fleshly desires?
I can't answer for you, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord! We will love the Lord our God with all our heart and all our soul and all our strength and lean on God to help us love our neighbors as ourselves! I served the devil much when I was lost, now that I'm a Christian, I will serve God even more!
"Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord" (Romans 12:11).
DSR
3/22/04