Got Fear or Zeal?

The Bible says: “And they took of the fruit of the land in their hands, and brought it down unto us, and brought us word again, and said, It is a good land which the LORD our God doth give us. Notwithstanding ye would not go up, but rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God: And ye murmured in your tents, and said, Because the LORD hated us, he hath brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us. Whither shall we go up? our brethren have discouraged our heart, saying, The people is greater and taller than we; the cities are great and walled up to heaven; and moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakims there.” Deuteronomy1:24-28 (KJV)

David McCullough in his book MORNINGS ON HORSEBACK tells this story about young Teddy Roosevelt: “Mittie (his mother) had found he was so afraid of the Madison Square Church that he refused to set foot inside if alone. He was terrified, she discovered, of something called the ‘zeal.’ It was crouched in the dark corners of the church ready to jump at him, he said. When she asked what a zeal might be, he said he was not sure, but thought it was probably a large animal like an alligator or a dragon. He had heard the minister read about if from the Bible. Using a concordance, she read him those passages containing the word ZEAL until suddenly, very excited, he told her to stop. The line was from the Book of John, 2:17: “And his disciples remembered that it was written, ‘The ZEAL of thine house hath eaten me up’”

Are we still afraid of some “zeal”? Or have we come to the place where we trust the Lord to deliver us? The Bible has some 365 times where it tells us to “Fear not” or its equivalent. That is one encouragement for each day of the year! Therefore, let’s encourage one another to live our lives in anticipation of our heavenly home with Christ Jesus and the precious Saints who have gone on before us! 

    Daily Chronological Bible Reading: Deuteronomy 1-2