I am grateful for Zeal in people!
"Never let your Zeal outrun your charity, the former is human the latter Divine." Hosea Ballou
"A zealous man in religion is pre-eminently a man of one thing. It is not enough to say that he is earnest, hearty, uncompromising, thorough-going, whole-hearted, fervent in spirit. He sees one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed-up in one thing — and that one thing is to please God. Whether he lives — or whether he dies; whether he has health — or whether he has sickness; whether he is rich — or whether he is poor; whether he pleases man — or whether he gives offence; whether he is thought wise — or whether he is thought foolish; whether he gets blame — or whether he gets praise; whether he gets honor, or whether he gets shame — for all this the zealous man cares nothing at all. He burns for one thing — and that one thing is to please God, and to advance God's glory...this is what I mean when I speak of "zeal in Religion". JC Ryle
That's lots of Zeal! My sister would have called that a Fanatic!!! I kinda call it Passion. The dictionary in fact refers to it as fanaticism thus my thought is... not to go over board and become a zealot, but to exercise moderation in all things showing zeal and Passion would be something pleasing to God and all around you.
The ten virgins were some zealous, some not? The rule vs the spirit? "Doctrine understood, changes behavior" -Packer. When we understand our eternal perspective our hearts burn for the spirit of the law and our minds want to seek after more knowledge of the law and want to live it.
Some people live by the "letter of the law", some the "spirit of the law". I use to think the letter to be the best way but as age has come upon me I am more to think that a person can fall if he or she only lives the letter of the law and never feels the spirit of the law. What good does it do you to follow the "the white book" to the letter of the law, if you have no feel for the spirit of the "the white book"? As in all things a person needs moderation, meditation, self motivation, and to believe in the thing he or she has ZEAL for or there is no Zeal and one will fall.
John Wesley said it like this:
Do all the good you can
in all the ways you can
to all the souls you can
in every place you can
at all times you can
with all the ZEAL you can
as long as you ever can.
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