To Encourage You

2 Samuel 2:18-23 “And the three sons of Zeruiah were there, Joab, Abishai, and Asahel. Now Asahel was as swift of foot as a wild gazelle. And Asahel pursued Abner, and as he went, he turned neither to the right hand nor to the left from following Abner. Then Abner looked behind him and said, ‘Is it you, Asahel?’ And he answered, ‘It is I.’ Abner said to him, ‘Turn aside to your right hand or to your left, and seize one of the young men and take his spoil.’ But Asahel would not turn aside from following him. And Abner said again to Asahel, ‘Turn aside from following me. Why should I strike you to the ground? How then could I lift up my face to your brother Joab?’ But he refused to turn aside. Therefore Abner struck him in the stomach with the butt of his spear, so that the spear came out at his back. And he fell there and died where he was. And all who came to the place where Asahel had fallen and died, stood still.”

One of the words that we find repeatedly in the Bible is “zeal.”  One dictionary defines the word zeal in this way: “great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective.”  In the Bible, we see the word applied in various ways. For example, in some places it refers to a passionate love, and the Hebrew word that is sometimes translated “zeal” at other places is translated “jealousy.” We find it used in this way in Proverbs in its warnings against the sin of adultery.  It warns that “jealousy makes a man furious, and he will not spare when he takes revenge” (Proverbs 6:34). In the New Testament we see the word applied to the Lord Jesus when he drove the money changers form the temple with a whip.  It tells us that after this happened, “his disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me’” (John 2:17). By this they were referring to a prophecy that had been written about this event in Psalm 69:9. Another account of commendable zeal is found in 2 Corinthians 9:2, which mentions the zeal of the Corinthian church in their giving to support other churches in need. And then we read of the man Epaphras and his zeal in praying for the church at Colosse in Colossians 4:13. And so, we see that zeal in matters of faith can be a very good thing.

However, zeal can be misplaced, as well. We have an example of this in the passage above from 2 Samuel.  Here, we have the account of the soldier Asahel, who was the brother of Joab the commander of King David’s army.  In his zeal to defend the king, he pursued Abner, the seasoned commander of the previous king Saul’s army.  Asahel was bound and determined to kill Abner. He wouldn’t be dissuaded even by Abner’s pleas. The result of his foolhardiness was his own death.  His zeal wasn’t tempered by wisdom, so it led him to a very bad place. 

Likewise, we find the Bible warning us in other places about misplaced zeal.  In our passion to pursue one cause or another, we can be blinded to the pitfalls that may be in our way.  In Philippians 3:6 Paul is talking about his former life as a Pharisee, when, in his zeal, he was persecuting the church.  He was just one example of the tendency of so many Jews in the first century to “have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge” (Romans 10:2).  It’s a word of caution to each one of us, i.e., that we can be so fully convinced as to have an all-consuming passion for something, but that “something” we are so passionate about can consume us instead.  In 1 Corinthians 13 we are warned of those who are so zealous in their “religion” that they give all they have to feed the poor and even give their body to be burned, but because their motive is something other than the love of God, it profits them nothing. 

So, what are you passionate about?  What makes you tick?  Are you so passionate about something that it is your all-consuming pursuit?  Well, if all that passion is truly being controlled and directed by God, it can be a very good thing. However, because it’s so easy for us to go off the rails in our zeal, may the Lord help us to always submit our zeal to His control.