How does a zealous disciple of Jesus behave? John Wesley was denied the privilege of preaching from the pulpit in the church; but with true evangelistic fervor took his father’s tomb for a pulpit and preached to the people the great truths of full salvation. Whitefield loved field preaching. Returning from a tour he lighted a candle and went upstairs to retire, weary after the journey; but the people gathered in front of the house and filled the street; and there on the stairway with a lighted candle in his hand, he preached his last message, retired and was no more; for God took him. John Knox, who cried out in his earnestness, “Give me Scotland or I die,” carried with him this zeal to the close of his ministry. Often he would be supported by attendants in order to reach the pulpit; but when he arose to speak the divine passion so filled his soul that one of his friends said: “So mighty was he in his yearning that I thought he would break the pulpit into bits.”¹ How is your zeal for the things of God. On a scale of one to ten, where would you rank yourself? Here are some Bible verses to help stir your heart to full white zeal for the Lord.

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Zealous or Slack: Which Are You?

John 2:17 (NKJV)
17 Then His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.”

• The Greek word ‘zeal’ means excessive fervor to do something or accomplish some end.
• In relation to the Lord, it means to be white-hot for Him.
• The opposite of zeal is being slack or lukewarm.
• Consider these words from the prophet Jeremiah.

• The Hebrew word used here for slackness means the quality of being lax and neglectful.
• Which type of disciple are you zealous for neglectful?
• Notice what Jeremiah, by the Spirit of God proclaimed.
• He proclaimed a curse on those who are lax and neglectful.
• Is this motivation enough to stir your heart?
• I don’t know about you, but I don’t want any of that cursing business in my life.
• Will any old effort do?
• Is that what a disciple is?
• You know God will understand.
• That’s what people dismissively think anyway.
• Will He understand slackness, that is just overlook it?

Zealous or Complacent?

• I think the answer to that is a resounding no.
• Lest you think that this is just an Old Testament ‘not under grace’ concept let’s at Paul’s declaration in Romans.

• Paul tells the church at Rome not to be slothful in zeal.
• That implies that it is absolutely possible to choose to be one or the other.
• Are you a disciple or are you slothful in zeal, slack or white-hot in your devotion to the Lord?
• Jesus strict instructions to the church are to ‘go and make disciples’.
• It’s hard to make disciples if you aren’t one yourself.

The Law of Reproduction

• The law of Genesis states that reproduction takes place after its own kind.

• Jesus told us to make disciples not just get people saved.
• The church’s focus has at times been just to get people in the Kingdom.
• The truth is that a percentage of people seem to slide back into the world after they say Yes to Jesus.
• Discipleship is a key not only to getting people saved but helping them grow in their new relationship with the Lord.
• Look at these words of Jesus.

• If you want to reach the world, believers should act like disciples.
• Disciples love one another and when they do, the world gets that message.
• Here it is again in Acts.

• The end result of
  • the church flowing with the Spirit of God;
  • believers taking their place;
  • acting as handmaidens and servants and hence disciples;
  • is the salvation of the lost.
• People do not want to see you hand out salvation tracts, they want to see your tracks!
• As one old-time preacher said, “It’s not how you jump and shout, it’s how straight you walk when your feet hit the ground.”
• As a side note here, did you know that you cannot teach a crab how to walk straight?
• If disciples of Jesus are crabby believers, what does that tell you about their walk?

Call to Action:

And so in various ways, God tries to get over to our understanding what a zealous disciple looks like so you have a model to copy. A target to shoot at. A goal to reach. We want to know and walk in the vision of what a real follower of Jesus looks like.