What is an "on-fire" Christian?

He has purchased a "peculiar people, to be zealous of good works." He has brought you to Himself, to have your whole heart wrapped up in His interests, your thoughts, actions, everything for Him. … Are we living enough out of the world (not merely out of its pleasures but its cares) and enough with Christ for Him to have a large place in the daily thoughts of our hearts? … Have we the consciousness from the time we get up in the morning till we go to bed at night, that our hearts are with Christ, … a consciousness that He is in us, and we identified with Him?

A good soldier loves his profession, and a true Christian soldier loves Christian warfare; it is his joy, his delight, to take pleasure in hardships and weariness. He enjoys what feather-bed Christians regard as self-inflicted penance, or as unnecessary trouble. Forward, ever forward, is his cry. It is no burden to him, but rather his happy service, to spend and to be spent for his Lord; it is heavenly rapture to him when sinners are made captive for Christ, when Satan-bound souls are loosed, and pass from death unto life, from the power of Satan to God. Idleness and ease are a distress to the one who is fired by eternal prospects, energized by the Holy Ghost, and constrained by Christ's love. "Woe is me if I preach not the gospel," is his reply to the countless efforts to damp his ardour and to quench his zeal. Eternity, eternity, he whispers to himself, when his weary body almost resents carrying out the orders of his soul. Such a spirit marks the front-rank men. May God bring Christ's soldiers to the front and especially may the young Christian, who reads this page, be fired by the prospects of eternity, and be filled with holy zeal the entire period of his short life below.

But for us, we have been redeemed, been brought to God, delivered from this present evil age, and diverted from the old self-centred life to find our new life centred in Him, to be for His special possession marked by zeal for good works. A very searching word "Zeal", you know, has in it the idea of heat. The complaint of our Lord to that last church in Revelation 3 is, "Thou art neither cold nor hot." Neither for nor against. No warmth We are to have zeal of good works May that kind of zeal be greatly promoted. Our Saviour died that it might be so.

The next clause has been much abused, and misunderstanding has arisen from the way in which words in course of time alter their meaning. "Business" we so naturally refer to our temporal occupations; these are the things, in fact, in which men commonly and necessarily, as they believe, are most "busy," but the word simply means "diligence": "In diligence not slothful." There is a way in which we may be busy about things without real diligence. All is to be earnest with us, we are to be "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." The character of the One we serve should be enough to enforce that. No detail of duty to Him can be a light matter.

Yes, so it is, but do we realize the necessity of our side of this matter? Lukewarm Christians are the devil's delight, and the Lord's grief. Fervency of spirit is above all things to be desired. But if our hearts are to flame in this cold world the oil of grace must flow into them; and for this we must cleave to the Lord with purpose of heart, and the secret supplies from His own inexhaustible stores will be more than enough to meet every public demand and that in spite of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

But this is not excitement. What I understand by excitement is the working up of mere nature, and the putting forth of such efforts of nature as are designed to work on the natural feelings — all high pressure — all that is merely sensational. This is all worthless. It is evanescent. And not only so, but it superinduces weakness. We never find aught of this in the ministry of our blessed Lord or His apostles: and yet what earnestness! what untiring energy! what tenderness! We see an earnestness which wore the appearance of being beside oneself; an energy which hardly afforded a moment for rest or refreshment; and a tenderness which could weep over impenitent sinners. All this we see; but no excitement. In a word, all was the fruit of the Eternal Spirit; and all was to the glory of God. Moreover, there was ever that calmness and solemnity which becomes the presence of God, and yet that deep earnestness which proves that man's serious condition was fully realized.

More temperate hearts, and wiser too, it may be, in many things, may say, "There is much of nature in such zeal, and not a little unbelief; remember the work is the Lord's." Fully admit thine own failure, and that the work is God's from first to last; but let nothing slacken thy zeal, or damp thy energy. May the flame of thy love be unquenchable. Oh! be in earnest; heaven is in earnest, hell is in earnest, and be thou in deep, deep earnest. The Master wept over a city, thou hast a world to weep over. Love with His love, and let His tears flow through thine eyes.

More temperate hearts, and wiser too, it may be, in many things, may say, "There is much of nature in such zeal, and not a little unbelief; remember the work is the Lord's." Fully admit thine own failure, and that the work is God's from first to last; but let nothing slacken thy zeal, or damp thy energy. May the flame of thy love be unquenchable. Oh! be in earnest; heaven is in earnest, hell is in earnest, and be thou in deep, deep earnest. The Master wept over a city, thou hast a world to weep over. Love with His love, and let His tears flow through thine eyes.

Behold, then, in the great Master Himself that which should mark all His servants to-day! If you would be in the current of His will, and follow in His steps, make these two things your objective. Earnestly covet this from the hand of God, that you may be set as a witness to His truth — to the whole of it and not a part merely — and that you may be of use in the completion of His present purpose of gathering out of the nations "a people for His name" (Acts 15:14). If these two are laid down firmly as the rails on which you travel, then you may safely generate every possible ounce of zeal. Off these lines your zeal may be largely destructive, like an engine under full steam which jumps the metals.

Moreover, willingly as he pursued his course, he fails not to remind us, in the closing words of this chapter, that watchful self-restraint is a moral necessity of spiritual life. It is possible to preach to others, with no life in ourselves. The Lord has elsewhere taught us impressively the same truth. Zeal may be strong enough to compass earth and sea, and yet be merely natural. But if so, it is a work of the flesh, which has its place outside the kingdom of God.7 The aim of all such teaching as we have here is to encourage faith, and condemn by anticipation reckless and self-confident professors.8 Of the Lord Himself it is written, that for the joy set before Him He endured the cross. If there is nothing to allure us, we shall not pursue. But faith has an object toward which it moves, not doubtingly or with indifference, but with an eager and confident desire. It has a present knowledge of Christ, which, though too scanty to satisfy, is enough to give conscience rest, and to set love in free and willing motion for His sake. That His people should be zealous of good works was a part of His purpose in redeeming them; and they who know the grace of God in truth are happy only while endeavouring to do His will.9