Articles
Spiritual Fervency
We have fervency about many things, like politics, golf, and football. But do we have spiritual fervency? It isn’t hard to see a difference in the enthusiasm and the light that twinkles in the eye when we talk about football and things of spiritual.
Fervent is a word that looks at the spirit, the spirit of people. It is an attitude. We talk about zeal, which means a boiling. That does not describe a tranquil spirit, but a troubled spirit–not troubled in a bad sense, but rather not at rest. The Bible describes Apollos as eloquent, mighty in scripture…but also fervent in spirit. What good does it do to know the scriptures but not be fervent in spirit? Fervency will not just happen. It is easier to drift to a place where our fervency settles out and die.
Open the seven letters to the seven churches, and there is Ephesus where Paul spends so much time. It was a grand center of things done in Asia. Yet, in Revelation 2:4 they had “left [their] first love.” Something in their very sense of values that has been lost. That is critical. They are on the edge of losing their identity as people of God. They lost their fervency that bound them to the Lord. It is not trivial to loose your fervency. Will we go where Ephesus went?
Sardis was said to be alive but in reality were dead (Revelation 3:2). Their reputation was there but the thing that should have identified them was not. Laodicea had grown lukewarm. People who should have been a delight to the Lord had become obnoxious to Him. They had lost their fervency.
Is it inevitable? Is it inevitable that we will find people drifting away? That churches will become empty, with cobwebs growing in the corner? People no longer hungry for the Bible and zealous in the cause of the Lord? Is it something that is just going to happen?
It doesn’t have to happen. We need to know how to prevent it because burnout is not inevitable. We don’t have to wear out, burn out, and die in the cause of the Lord. Paul didn’t. When we meet the old man Paul he doesn’t sound like an old man. The zest and zeal of this old man that is about to finish up is at least equal to the man who started.
How would we prevent burnout? How would we prevent just drifting away like Ephesus until we loose our fervency in the Lord? Peter’s said: as long as I am here, down to the last word, I am going to stir you up (2 Peter 1:12-13). How will he do that? By reminding them.
We need to remember where we were when the Lord called us. We take ourselves so seriously. We have made so much progress, become so righteous, we defend our ground. We forget where we came from. We forget what we were. It makes a difference. If we forget what we were when the Lord called us, the fire will die. No doubt about it. We get to where we do not even want to acknowledge that we are sinners. We are called when sinners. His mercy is still extended to us as sinners. In this local church we are put together with people who are sinners. Who need to be reminded that only by the mercy of God are we anything other than lost sinners. If we forget that, we have forgotten something that is vital. We cannot live spiritually without it. If we forget, the fire dies.
Your dedication to do what is right, to live a different kind of life will not change unless spiritual fervency goes away. As surely as fervency goes, repentance dies. The diligence we ought to have for the Lord will be gone.
Paul never lost his fervency because he never forgot. Paul was not ashamed to tell about where he had been or what his story was. Ask Felix, Agrippa, the Jews at Castle steps, and the Philippians. I was a blasphemer, injurious, killing Christians, enemy of God, but God called me. Paul never forgot, and his zest for being a Christian was never diminished. It was as fresh as the mercy that had been extended to him was at the beginning.
We sing “I was sinking deep in sin…. now safe am I … Love lifted me” (“Love Lifted Me” by Kenny Rodgers). We sing the song, and can we doubt the fervency of the writer? Do we have a sense of how bad it is to be lost? Without a sense of how bad it is to be lost, we will never appreciate it and have zest for our Savior.
