Zeal for God....

This may be a hard concept to grasp due to its nature going against modern-day “political correctness”, but it’s exactly what God wants from us. Zeal for Him and His people. In this particular case Phinehas killed a man and woman with a spear, ending the plague in which God placed on the adulterous (in more ways than one) Israelites. Some of the Israelites were having sex with foreign women, which eventually lead the men to take part in the pagan worship of Baal. God’s zealous anger was unleashed on the people because of this. Phinehas saw the man and woman enter his tent, so he rushed in and put an end to it. God rewarded him by ended the plague, where 24,000 people died. God also gave Phinehas and his descendants the permanent right to the priesthood. Phinehas’ zeal for God was recognized, acknowledged, and rewarded. I know most people reading this will be scratching their heads trying to figure out how murder can be rewarded. I too can think like that, but God’s ways are above our ways, and He calls the shots not me. Phinehas’ action saved many more lives, by demonstrating his zeal for the Lord. He was doing what God commanded Moses to do. Is your zeal for the Lord being demonstrated on a daily basis? And I don’t mean murdering someone. Are your actions, behavior, and devotion to God paramount in your life? If not, why not?

6 Just then one of the Israelite men brought a Midianite woman into his tent, right before the eyes of Moses and all the people, as everyone was weeping at the entrance of the Tabernacle. 7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron the priest saw this, he jumped up and left the assembly. He took a spear 8 and rushed after the man into his tent. Phinehas thrust the spear all the way through the man’s body and into the woman’s stomach. So the plague against the Israelites was stopped, 9 but not before 24 ,000 people had died.10 Then the Lord said to Moses, 11 “Phinehas son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron the priest has turned my anger away from the Israelites by being as zealous among them as I was. So I stopped destroying all Israel as I had intended to do in my zealous anger. 12 Now tell him that I am making my special covenant of peace with him. 13 In this covenant, I give him and his descendants a permanent right to the priesthood, for in his zeal for me, his God, he purified the people of Israel, making them right with me.” Numbers 25:6-13