Zeal: How to Take Your Spiritual Temperature

Growing hotter, cooling to lukewarm, or becoming cold: which describes your zeal for God?

During a visit to Jerusalem, Jesus found men selling livestock and exchanging money in the temple courts. Angry and passionate, Jesus overturned tables, scattered money, and drove all the men and animals out of the temple area with a whip (John 2:13-17).

As the disciples watched the scene unfold, they recognized the fulfillment of David’s words: “Zeal for your house consumes me” (Psalm 69:9, NIV). Jesus’ zeal was a vigorous, all-encompassing fervency. So active was His passion for God that it literally “ate him up.”

The opposite of this bubbling zeal is not a heart that has long been cold, but rather a heart that has grown apathetic. That kind of flagging passion repulses our Lord. He even goes so far as to admonish and correct those whose hearts were once fervent but are now becoming indifferent (Revelation 3:16).

The Temperature Reading Versus Temperature Movement

Like a thermometer that rises and falls according to changes in temperature, a Christ-follower’s zeal fluctuates in temperature, too. In Revelation 3 John writes of several churches whose established believers were previously filled with intense passion for God, but now have lost that zeal. The drop in their spiritual temperature meant their hearts had become lukewarm. They needed to be rekindled.

Your current temperature reading is less important than the direction it’s moving on the thermometer. Is your zeal cooling down … or warming up? A hunger for worship, a desire for God’s Word, a willingness to serve, deepening relationships with others – these are just a few indicators of a growing passion for God.

Check the Direction Your Thermometer Moves

As you reflect on your spiritual temperature, consider whether it’s stationary or moving – and in which direction. Draw a horizontal line on a piece of paper. Label one end with a 1 (indifferent) and the other 10 (zealous). Ask, “Is my love for God becoming more passionate, or has it cooled to lukewarm complacency or even cold indifference?” Place a dot along the line at the spot appropriate for where you are now and an arrow in the direction in which you’re moving.

Growing in zeal is the direction I want to be headed in. I don’t want to be in the “indifferent or complacent camp.” I wager you don’t, either. If you’re moving towards lukewarm complacency or cold indifference, know this: you don’t need to keep going that way. God desires for you to be passionate about Him.

Seek Him. Reflect on His amazing character, how much He loves you, and all He has done in your life. Ask God to rekindle and multiply your passion for Him and His house.

As you do, your thermometer readings will begin to shift away from indifference … and towards a zeal that “eats you up.”