Daily Devotion

March 17, 2015

Don’t Run Out of Steam!


“I bear him witness that he has a great zeal.” Col 4:13 NKJV

John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, travelled two hundred and fifty thousand miles on horseback, averaging twenty miles a day for forty years. He preached forty thousand sermons, produced four hundred books, and knew ten languages. At eighty-three he was annoyed that he couldn’t write more than fifteen hours a day without his eyes hurting. And at eighty-six he was ashamed he couldn’t preach more than twice a day. He complained in his diary of an increasing tendency to lie in bed until 5.30 a.m. One word described Wesley’s life: “zeal.” Paul writes: “Epaphras…greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he had a great zeal for you” (vv. 12-13 NKJV). We speak of “getting up a head of steam.” It’s the language of the locomotive. Steam is literally water turned to energy. Kate Eaton wrote in the Chicago Tribune: “You may see it above your whistling tea kettle or on your bathroom mirror, but that’s not it. Steam is the clear vapor between the hot water and the visible mist. As it forms at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, it expands to take up much more space than its liquid state. This explosive expansion, harnessed in a giant locomotive, is what powered 250-ton engines and enabled them to pull twenty or more railcars through the Blue Ridge Mountains, across the great plains and over the deserts to the west. It’s a powerful force.” If you work for God you must spend time with God, otherwise you’ll run out of steam!

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