Feel the Zeal - a milestone of maturity

By P-J Smyth,

Johannesburg, South Africa

Burning hot and burning long is a sign of godliness and maturity, and learning to feel your own zeal is a crucial stage on the road of progress. Take Titus for example …

Ever wondered how Titus went from zero to hero – from an unknown ‘nobody’ to a respected apostolic figure in the New Testament? Interestingly, a huge part of the answer is this: he got his own zeal.

Tag on

Titus first appears in Scripture as the tag-on team member to Jerusalem: ‘... I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also’ (Gal. 2:1). He is not the main guy. He is not the No 2 guy. He is the tag-on guy. Not George Michael but, er, the other one. He got involved because Paul asked him to join in, and Titus said ‘yes’. Isn’t this usually how it all starts, with our attachment being more to the leader than to God? ‘Sure, I will help you put out the chairs.’ ‘Lead a small group? I’ll give it a go but please help me!’ Milestone 1 is simply to show up and be willing. Good things begin to happen to people who faithfully show up.

Courier

It seems that Titus acquitted himself well on the trip to Jerusalem, so now Paul begins to push his buttons and see if he is willing to serve. The second time that we encounter Titus he is mentioned as the one whom Paul asked to carry a letter to Corinth (2 Cor. 7), a letter that scholars refer to as ‘the severe letter’. He was the postman to Corinth carrying unpopular cargo – welcome to Milestone 2, the place of willingness to do menial tasks. Not in the limelight, it tests whether we will represent our leader faithfully. Would they ‘shoot the messenger’? Would Titus distance himself from Paul’s letter or represent him faithfully? Milestone 2 is the Copernican revolution that moves self away from the centre of our universe. Jesus’ serving on earth was not to disguise God but to reveal God through a servant heart. That is how we are to be.

Partner

And now on to the big one. On the journey to maturity and leadership, many pass Milestones 1 and 2 yet find Milestone 3 elusive. Milestone 3 is the place of gaining your own zeal. Take a look:

‘I thank God, who put into the heart of Titus the same concern I have for you. For Titus not only welcomed our appeal, but he is coming to you with much enthusiasm and on his own initiative (zeal)… As for Titus, he is my partner and fellow worker among you’ (2 Cor. 8:16,17,23).

Wow, what a jump! Titus goes from being the tag-on servant-hearted guy to a leader in his own right whom Paul now speaks of as ‘my partner and fellow worker’. How did this radical promotion happen? Answer: he got his own zeal. At Milestone 3 something clicks and we develop a zeal, an enthusiasm and initiative that is derived direct from God. We begin ‘to do’ not primarily because we are told to or asked to, but because God’s zeal is welling up inside us and becoming our own zeal. The things that God and Paul were passionate about had now also become Titus’ passion. He owned the mission for himself. At Milestone 3 our fire is stoked from within us by God more than from outside by a ‘Paul’.

Zeal for the call

Who else had zeal for the call? Isaiah hit Milestone 3 when he voluntarily responded to God’s general call. Deep within he found his own zeal for ‘the call’.
Nehemiah hit Milestone 3 when he took personal responsibility to rebuild Jerusalem. He was serving God just fine at Milestone 2 but then everything changed when the zeal of God for Jerusalem became his zeal for Jerusalem. Who told him to do it? God. Where was the fire? In his belly.

And then, of course, there is David. When confronted by Goliath, 10,000 Israeli troops stayed at Milestone 1 or 2, and only David made the leap to Milestone 3.
Getting your own zeal and call from God does not, of course, eliminate others from influencing you. Paul says that Titus still ‘welcomed our appeal’ and David submitted his plans to King Saul. But what a joy to lead others who have passed Milestone 3 because all we need to do is guide and encourage them rather than try to ignite them.

Leadership zeal

Milestone 4 is the climax where we are entrusted with our own sphere of leadership. For Titus it was his apostolic deployment on Crete. What a commission!

He still receives instruction and accountability from Paul (see all of the book of Titus), but he is now operating in his own sphere of responsibility and calling.
If you want to burn hot and burn long with an inner zeal and be entrusted with increasing responsibility, here are a few helps:

1. Time with Jesus. Spending time alone with Jesus results in a myriad of good things, including an impartation of his zeal. I come away from my times with God burning with His authority, love and zeal. He is the ultimate stoker of zeal, and in fact, without regular time with Him we run the risk of only developing zeal for the job, or zeal without knowledge, or other equally dangerous counterfeits of the real-zeal.

2. Get hold of ‘the faith’ for yourself. Paul says we are each to get our own grip on the faith (1 Tim. 3:9). Make sure you believe what you believe with a clear conscience, both about doctrine and the mission of your church.

3. Allow hardship, set-backs and suffering to develop your own conviction and zeal. Relentless zeal is produced through tough times. See them through and they will stoke the fires of zeal. Seasons of frustratingly slow church growth have always served to make me dig deep in God, have my motives purified, and reaffirm my zeal for the advance of God’s kingdom.

4. Keep taking risks. Continuously stepping out of your comfort zone and staying on the faith-stretch keeps the adrenaline levels high, but more importantly allows you to keep seeing God in action – feel the zeal, baby! So, don’t take your cloak or wallet with you – let God arise. The taking of risks is not much in vogue in our ‘health and safety’ paranoid culture, and this is one of Satan’s most cunning plans to castrate true leadership. ‘Leadership’ presupposes forward motion not just managing the status quo. But here’s the math: no risk taking = no forward motion.

5. Avoid dead works like the plague. Dead works are ‘doing the stuff’ because we have to … because it is ‘what we Christians have to do’. Yuk. These are works void of love and faith. They will profit you nothing, others little, and are an offense to God. Also, you won’t get any rewards for them! A pastor of another church attended Godfirst for six weeks to see what he could learn. At the end he said to me, ‘I have never seen such a generous and hard-working church, but in the last six weeks I haven’t heard you tell anyone to do anything. How does that work?’ So, I talked him through the difference between God-fuelled living and dead-works-fuelled-living.

6. Think on the cloud of witnesses. In preparation for a trip to the USA, I have been reading American history. I read about General Patton who, as a young soldier in World War I, got paralysed with fear during a brutal skirmish with the enemy. Cowering behind cover, he got a vision of the long line of military ancestors watching him from above. Stirred by his heritage, he jumped to his feet and led the charge shouting at the top of his voice, ‘It is time for another Patton to die!’ We are watched by a cloud of zealots (Heb. 12) … let’s get out there and lead another charge!