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Communion And Christian Character Galatians
5:16-26 Dr. Myron J. Taylor, Minister Emeritus Westwood Hills Christian Church As we begin to think about Christian Character we want to look at it in the light of what it means for our lives to be related to God. The great biblical word here is salvation (soteria). The word "salvation" in its general literal sense signifies well-being in all its forms, from soundness of body to the highest ideals of spiritual health. In the first century world all serious-minded people, Gentiles no less that Jews, were seeking salvation. For the Jew salvation would mean primarily deliverance from the sin which separates from a holy God. For the Gentile, it would mean deliverance from Fate, fear of death, and all the nameless insecurity that comes with life. In the Christian gospel Paul claimed to have the answer to all their longings ("the power of God unto salvation" Rom. 1:16). Paul’s view of salvation was not merely negative—it included not only what a person was saved from but also what a person must be saved to—reconciliation and righteousness and life. Sin is separation from God. To be a Christian (salvation) is to be in fellowship with God In Jesus Christ by grace through faith through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. To grow and mature as a Christian is to ever become more "like Christ." The end of our salvation is at last to be "with Christ." When Paul thought about salvation, he saw it as a word with three tenses. It meant a past event, a present experience, and a future hope. "We were saved," he says in one place (Rom. 8:24), "We are being saved," he says in another (I Cor. 15:2), and "we shall be saved," he says in a third place (Rom. 5:9). In Romans 5:1,2 all three tenses are expressed: "Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast (rejoice) in our hope of sharing the glory of God." Salvation is a concept which covers all of life. If someone should ask you, "are you saved, sister?," you could very well respond, "are you talking about the past, the present, or the future?" There is a sense in which salvation was provided for everyone in the death and resurrection of Jesus. There is a sense in which we are in the process of being saved. Salvation is a present reality and a process—a gift and a task. It can be described as Life "in Christ," or Life "in the Spirit", and the marks of this new life are "death to sin" and "peace with God" —sinlessness and serenity. There is also a sense in which we shall be finally saved when this new life shall be consummated in the realization of God’s great eternal purpose—eschatology–"The last things"–"being with Christ." Our present concern in this paper is with salvation as a present experience. Here we are as Christians seeking to grow and mature in this wonderful relationship we have with God in Jesus Christ. How does it work? I have found it helpful to say that a Christian life is a life based on faith (and faith presupposes grace), lived by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the fellowship of the people of God—the church. Christian Character is formed not in keeping a new set of rules and regulations, but in a new relationship with God in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. We need to learn more about what this means ethically. What makes Christian ethics Christian? There must be some unique factor in the approach of the believing Christian to the good life and the moral decisions in which we are all involved. There is a great word for this unique factor, a word which we have not been able to replace or eliminate from our Christian vocabulary—and that word is grace. "The starting-point of Christian ethics is not the acceptance of a new law of life introduced by Jesus Christ, but a new status and a new power offered and conferred by him. Grace is the New Testament word used to describe the action of God in Christ whereby we are accepted by him just as we are, with all our vices and imperfections, and given a new nature with the impetus to fulfill God’s will" (David H. C. Read, Christian Ethics, 31) Grace is the theological center from which our Christian ethic comes. Christian goodness is always grace goodness. "Virtue then is not seen as an achievement of which we can be proud but as a gift that comes with the forgiveness of God" (Read, Christian Ethics, 31). When Jesus said, "Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest" (Matt. 11:28), it was the crushing burden of Pharisaic religion that he surely had in mind. The fact that Jesus’ yoke is kind and his burden is light does not mean it is easy and undemanding. Rather, it means, it is grace. Grace is personal. Grace is Christ meeting us at the point of our greatest need. "Grace is freedom: freedom from the burden of sin, freedom from the bondage of both religion and irreligion, freedom from the need for self-justification, freedom from the fears that haunt our moral decisions. Christian ethics is thus something very different from a new and stringent code on top of the Old Testament Law.…The essence of the new life is not law but grace. Christian ethics is thus something very different from a new and stringent code on top of the Old Testament Law.… The essence of the new life is not law but grace. The perfection is not imposed as an impossible ideal but as already present in Christ into whose Kingdom we come, not as moral princes who are qualified to enter, but as beggars who have nothing to offer but our need" (Read, op.cit., 33). The motive behind the Christian ethic is, then, gratitude for what God has done, not an effort to win his favor by our goodness. And the dynamic for the good life is not discovered in our ability to observe more and more rules of conduct, but in the given presence of the Holy Spirit who is God in Christ at work in us helping, inspiring, illuminating, quickening, sanctifying. The Holy Spirit is God in the present tense. The Holy Spirit is the divine energy or dynamic of the new life in Christ. Paul speaks often of "the power of the Holy Spirit" (I Thess. 1:5; Rom. 15:13). The Holy Spirit creates power where there was weakness, freedom where there was servitude, and life where there was death. Hunter quotes Erskine of Linlathen, who once wrote: "In the New Testament religion is grace, and ethics is gratitude" (The Gospel according to Paul, 44). John Ballie said: "Two things are really real–grace and gratitude." Christian morality is our response in Christian living to the amazing kindness of God to us in Jesus Christ. Gratitude is seen as the right response to the extravagant goodness of God in Christ which is grace. For Paul Christian goodness is always "grace" goodness. Good conduct is not conformity to a code but a harvest of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). We are discharged from the law, to serve God in a new way, the way of the Spirit, in contrast to the old way, the way of a written code (See Romans 7:6). If we may summarize Paul’s view of the Christian ethic, it would be something like this: Act as Christ did. Act as Christ directed. Act as members of Christ’s body. Act in love (agape). We see in this Galatian passage (5:16-26) something of the nature of Christian truth itself. Of course, that immediately raises the question of whether there is such a thing as Christian truth. Truth is truth, we say, whatever its origin. But that is only partially true. Truth is that which corresponds to reality. But what reality? The reality of science or the reality of faith? There is a dimension to Christian truth that is often overlooked, even by certain strands of the Christian faith itself. A. M. Hunter says, "Truth for Paul was always ‘Truth in order to goodness’. The new life, which is salvation as a present experience, is nothing if not moral, and it stands to the Gospel as the fruit to the root. If Paul pitches the ethical requirements of Christianity pretty high, the things required are required as tokens of salvation, not as conditions. A Jewish rabbi might have said: ‘If you do not live rightly you will not be saved.’ Paul said, ‘If you do not live rightly, you have not been saved’" (The Gospel According to St. Paul, 43). Pitt-Watson contends that the reason Pilate did not understand Jesus when he responded to his jesting question, "What is truth?," is that Pilate and Jesus had different concepts of truth. Pilate represents the western world with its intellectual roots in Greece and its pragmatic roots in Rome. Jesus represents the culture of the people of the Book, a culture rooted in the Old Testament Scriptures. Truth for Pilate was something you thought—a function of the intellect which expressed itself in propositions, concepts calculations. Pilate had been brought up on Aristotle, Euclid and Archimedes. Truth for Jesus was not just something you thought but something you felt and did. Jesus had been brought up on the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms. The Bible does not separate the intellect from the emotions and the will like Pilate did. In the Bible truth is a function not only of propositions but of persons—truth is not only to be thought, but also to be felt and done. We need to say propositional truth matters, but sound doctrine and propositional truth are not enough if the heart is unmoved and the will remains irresolute. Felt truths are not to be despised. Some people feel their faith with a depth and profoundness that makes mere intellectual truth look almost superficial by comparison. "Everyone who loves…knows God," writes John (I John 4:7), no matter how inept such lovers may sometimes be at expressing their love in propositional orthodoxy. "The unloving know nothing of God (I John 4:8 NEB), no matter how correct their intellectual may be. In the same way, some people "do the truth" of their faith (see John 3:21) in a way that shames our intellectual orthodoxies and our felt traditional piety. "The truth we preach must be a truth not just thought, but also felt and done.…The truth we preach must be a truth not just felt but also thought and done… The truth we preach must be a truth not just done, but also thought and felt." (A Primer For Preachers, 98-99). The special kind of truth of which the Bible speaks is a holistic truth in which intellectual assent, emotional involvement, and volitional commitment are fused together when we wholeheartedly embrace the Christian faith. "The gospel is most clearly heard when we speak wholeheartedly, heart to heart, with hearts that not only feel, but also think and act" (A Primer For Preachers, 101). Christian truth is that perception of reality which comes to us in a personal relationship with a personal God in the person of Jesus Christ through the personal presence of the Holy Spirit in the fellowship of the Church. It occurred to me that as we seek to continue to grow and mature in Christ and as we climax our worship each Lord’s Day with the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, that we might think again of what this sacrament of continuance is meant to bring to our lives. Is it given to us so we can boast of keeping it each Sunday? Why keep it at all? Because here God is seeking through the Holy Spirit to reach us, to touch us, to instruct us, to encourage us, to inspire us to become more like our Lord Jesus Christ. If the fruit of the spirit as Schleiermacker says, is essentially the virtues of Christ, then surely that is what the Holy Spirit is trying to develop in us. So, I decided to examine each of the nine "fruit of the Spirit" to see if we can understand in English what each of those words meant to Paul and to the Galatians. Then, that is what the Holy Spirit through the mysterious working in the Lord’s Supper is trying to accomplish in us–not simply as individuals but as members of the Christian community–the community of the Holy Spirit?. Jesus said of the Holy spirit "He will take what is mine and make it known to you" (John 16:14NIV). We want to be more like Jesus and the fruit of the Spirit is descriptive of the character of Jesus. Therefore, I have tried to write a Communion Meditation on each of the nine virtues. Our experience at communion should be helping us to grow and develop as Christians–to become more like our Lord. "Examine yourselves," wrote Paul. My hope is that these meditations may help us to put our minds on Christ–on his suffering and death for us–and help us desire with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength to be more like Jesus. I have long felt that though we keep the Supper each week in our Christian Churches there is much that we miss in its meaning and intended impact upon our lives. God intends that the Lord’s Supper is one means by which we are encouraged and strengthened to continue in the Christian life. It is one way by which we are assisted to be transformed into the image of Christ. Hunter says, "When Christians partake of this food and drink, there is set up the closest fellowship with the Savior and with one another. The risen Lord, unseen but not unknown, is present with his people, and the worshippers share in the virtue of what he has done for them" (The Gospel According to Paul, 43). The Power to transform us morally comes to us in the reality of our worship. David H. C. Read has said: "Theologically we have seen that Christian ethics are realized within the context of the Church" (Christian Ethics, 49). Many years ago Randolph Crump Miller, a leader in Christian Education, wrote: "Christian character develops within the fellowship. When we are loyal to God who works within the fellowship…we have a framework for our loyalty that transcends the immediate cultural situation. Our beliefs guide our actions, and our membership in the group is the channel of grace whereby we are able to approximate God’s will for us through our vocation. Ethical behavior is our thanksgiving for God’s grace to us through Christ, and by the power of the Spirit we are enabled to fight under God’s banner and to continue Christ’s faithful servant" (Christian Nurture and The Church, 195). To the Corinthians Paul wrote: "And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, and being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord the Spirit" (2 Cor. 3:18). Commenting on this verse, N. T. Wright says: "But what Paul seems to mean here is that we are to be changed more and more into the image of Christ; and the image of Christ is precisely the image of the crucified and risen one. Thus, when we are together as Christians, and when the Spirit is at work in our hearts collectively, then by sharing in fellowship with one another we are not only encouraged by one another's faith but we are also being transformed so that we increasingly share the likeness of Christ. It is a transformation which, as he emphasizes at the end of the verse, comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." (Reflecting The Glory, 24,25). In our worship we are being transformed into the likeness of Christ. It is mysteriously true that a person becomes like that which one worships. Nowhere is the ethical power of the encounter with God more clearly revealed than in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. It is the moment of worship when our actual religious experience touches most closely the ethics of everyday life. Therefore it seems appropriate to think of "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." That is God’s recipe, God’s formula, for the sanctification for growth in Christlikeness. As we live in Christ by faith, empowered by the Holy Spirit, in the fellowship of the church, slowly, imperceptibly we are gradually changed into the image of our Lord. It is not by following rules, not by will-power, not by trying harder, but in relationship, in worship, and especially at the Lord’s Table we "are transformed" (note the passive voice). It is the work of God in our lives when we are surrendered to God in loyal service. It is not something of which we can boast, but something for which we can be eternally grateful and full of praise because of what God in Christ through the Holy Spirit is doing within us. God will transform us if we will open our lives to him and allow him to do his work within us. [ A practical suggestion. Use one of these meditations in your worship at the time of the celebration of the Supper. I would suggest that you print one of the meditations in the order of Service each week. People can have a copy of it to read and think about during the week. The preacher could plan a series of sermons on these "fruit of the Spirit" that could go along with the meditation each week and serve as a point of unity for Sunday worship.] Communion Meditation - Love I If we desire to grow as a Christian the first thing we must do is learn how to love. "The fruit of the Spirit is love " (Gal. 5:22). Love is first on the list of the fruit of the Spirit because all the other eight graces in the list are simply different aspects of love. The great word in Christian character is love. "You must want love more than anything else" (I Cor. 14:1 JB). Paul uses a word which means to pursue, to make an eager, strenuous, persistent effort to possess the most excellent gift of love. Dr. A. M. Hunter says the best English word for Christian love is caring. "The greatest of these is caring " (I Cor. 13:13). The Lord’s Supper should be a time to encourage us and assist us in our growth and maturity in Christ. All Christians should be seeking earnestly to find out what it means to love. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength…you shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:29-31). Love is the foundation of all Christian character. Communion Meditation - Love II The Christian life is a life of love. Love to God and love to neighbor (Mark 12:29-31), love of enemies (Matt. 5:44), love for one another (John 13:34-35; I John 4:7-21). It means sympathy with those in need (I John 3:17). It means caring rather than indifference to the need of others (I John 3:17). It means unselfish living, thinking of the good of others (Phil. 2:4). It means readiness to give up things for the sake of others or to avoid offending others (I Cor. 8:13). It means generous giving to help those in need (2 Cor. 8:1-7). As my old professor often said: "Love is intelligent-goodwill." It is a warm, intelligent, persistent, kindly, resourceful, patient, friendly, sacrificial goodwill, which finds expression in a life that seeks to help others and do them good. Christian love is unconquerable, undefeatable goodwill. It is the spirit in the heart which will never seek anything but the highest good for every human being. That means love is intelligent and strong. The Lord’s Supper should remind us that we are spending a lifetime trying to learn how to love. In the Supper we have the most powerful picture of God’s love for us expressed in the death of Jesus.Communion Meditation - Joy "The fruit of the Spirit is… "joy." Joy is an uplifting word greater than pleasure or happiness. It does not depend on favorable circumstance or merely pleasant feeling. Joy can face all the realities of life and death. The Lord’s Supper is a joyous feast, the Bible Calls it a Eucharist — a feast of thanksgiving and praise. God wants us to be a joyous people. If the Holy Spirit is the power in our lives we will be a joyful person. God intended us to be that kind of person. Job said when God created the world "the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy" (38:7). When Jesus was born it was called "good news of great joy" (Luke 2:10). Some form of the word for joy occurs in 132 places in the New Testament. The early Christians lived in a world that was old, tired, and dull. The common idea was that history goes round in a circle and repeats itself over and over. But the Christians believed there was purpose in creation, meaning in history, and destiny ahead of it. They believed God loved them and demonstrated his love in the person of Jesus —especially in his death. When they kept the Supper they broke their bread with gladness. As Christopher Wren, the excellent hymn writer, puts it: "I come with joy to meet my Lord, forgiven, loved and free, in awe and wonder to recall his life laid down for me, his life laid down for me." I hope you experience a sense of joy as you keep the Supper today.Communion Meditation - Peace One quality of the Christian Character is peace. "The fruit of the Spirit…is peace." The ancient world sought peace as wistfully as we do. They believed that peace could only come with the elimination of desire, the death of emotion and feeling, the acquisition of indifference, complete self-sufficiency. Our faith has taught us that peace is that state of things which exists when God’s will is being done. "In his will is our peace." (Dante). The Hebrew word is shalom which really means everything that makes for a person’s highest good–good health, refreshing sleep, soundness of body and mind, material prosperity, safety and security, a long life and a tranquil death. In the New Testament the word peace, eirene, occurs eighty-eight times and is used in every book. The New Testament is the book of peace because it tells the story and points the way to "the Prince of Peace". Biblical peace means a right relationship with God, a right relationship with others, a right relationship (integration) within oneself. Peace is more than personal. How do we find "peace on earth goodwill toward men"? Today we see clearly that there can be no peace on earth, if one half of the world is slave and the other half is free, if one half of the world is poor and the other half rich. Wherever the cause of justice and peace are being served, the Church needs to be there taking the lead. As you break the bread today and as you drink the cup hear the words of Jesus: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.… Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid" (John 14:27). May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,l guard your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ (Phil. 4:7).Communion Meditation - Patience "The fruit of the Spirit is…patience." We speak of a person being short-tempered, but we don’t use the phrase long-tempered. If we did it would perfectly represent the Greek word for patience. Patience is not a colorful concept like love or joy or peace or courage. But it is a word that calls upon us to be like God. "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness" (Exodus 34:6). It expresses an attitude toward people which never loses patience with them, however unreasonable they are, and which never gives up hope for them, however unlovely and unteachable they may be. It expresses an attitude to events which never admits defeat, and which never loses hope and faith, however dark and incomprehensible the situation may be. Patience is self-restraint that does not hastily retaliate a wrong. It is forbearance that endures injuries and evil deeds without being provoked to anger or revenge. Patience is the ability to stick to it, don’t give up, the power to see it through. The Holy Spirit in our lives will help us overcome our impatience and out inability to wait. We seem to always be rushing. God takes his time. He never seems to be in a hurry. The only time God is pictured as running was when the father ran down the road to welcome his wayward son home. With great patience the Father had waited for the son to come home. God is trying to teach us to be patient. Think about that as you take the bread and drink the cup today. Communion Meditation - Kindness Kindness is one of the ways in which love manifest itself: "Love is patient; love is kind" (I Cor. 13:4). Kindness is love in action. Luke helps us to understand why kindness is so important to the Christian: speaking of God (the Most High) Luke say, "he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked." That should help those who come to the Table feeling unworthy to even touch the sacred elements. When someone has done us an injury, what can we do? We may take the heaviest revenge possible–death. We may say "eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand" (Exodus 21:24). We may bear the injury without trying to pay it back. That is very hard to do. But there is a higher level and that is to seek to do good to those who have injured us. It takes the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives to do that. "The fruit of the Spirit is …kindness" (Gal. 5:22). Take the Supper today and pledge yourself to: "speak kindly of someone at least once a day. Think kindly about someone at least once a day. Act kindly toward someone at least once a day. Avoid speaking unkindly of anyone. Avoid acting unkindly toward anyone" (These last words are from The Hidden Power of Kindness, Lawrence G. Loirsak, 75). Communion should help us to desire to be kind. Communion Meditation - Goodness "The fruit of the Spirit is…goodness." All the other eight qualities are quite definite adornments of Christian character, but the word "goodness" is a very wide general term. What was Paul thinking of – what meaning did the word have for him? It is interesting that in the New Testament only two persons are spoken of as being "good", Joseph of Arimathea and Barnabas. Joseph was sincere and he was generous. The fact that other members of the Sanhedrin condemned Jesus didn’t influence him. He wanted to make up his own mind. He had a fair and reasonable mind. And he was generous. He gave the new tomb that he was probably saving for himself to Jesus for his burial. Barnabas was also fair and generous. He accepted Gentile Christians into the Church and extended the hand of fellowship to Saul of Tarsus when he was converted. He was also generous in giving the money he received for a farm he sold to the Church. Fairness, integrity, justice and generosity are surely a part of what it means to be good. The contrast of the word for "evil" may shed some light on what it means to be "good". In the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, at the end of the day all the laborers were paid the same. Those who worked the long hours complained. The master of the Vineyard said: "Do you begrudge my generosity" (Matt. 25:15). Moffatt translates: "Have you a grudge because I am generous?" A footnote to the passage translates: "Is your eye evil because I am good?" Here evil means mean, niggardly, grudging, miserly. Good then, means generous, kindly, open-handed, open-hearted. Goodness is the fairness and the generosity which flows from the heart that is kind. Think about that as you partake of the Supper. The Holy Spirit wants to help you become that kind of person. Communion Meditation - Faithfulness "The fruit of the Spirit is…faithfulness". The word used here in the original language is most often translated faith, but scholars agree that here it should be translated faithfulness–not one who trusts in God (that has been discussed earlier in the Galatian letter) but one who can be trusted. The word in this context is not a theological virtue but an ethical virtue. Moffatt and Phillips translate it as fidelity, and perhaps, another possibility would be simply loyalty. The Holy Spirit is seeking to guide us into a life like our God who can be trusted. Our God is faithful, loyal, one who can be trusted. "The One (God) who calls you is faithful" (I Thess. 5:24). "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Heb. 13:5). God wants his people to be a faithful people, a people of reliable trustworthiness. Who is the person whom others want to marry, to employ, to elect to public office? Those whom we can trust. We all know there are times when we can be fickle, weak, stoop below our best. We long to be steady, dependable, mature. We want to be real persons. That is what God wants us to be. That is what our faith is seeking to help us be. The Lord’s Supper is a time when we are reminded of God’s faithfulness to us, of Christ’s faithfulness even to the point of death. It is a time when we face ourselves and examine our faithfulness. The Holy Spirit is working in our lives to help us be more reliable, dependable, trustworthy, faithful. As you participate in the Supper today ask God’s forgiveness for any unfaithfulness in the past week and promise God you will do your best to be trustworthy and faithful in the coming week. Communion Meditation - Gentleness The fruit of the Spirit is …gentleness". The Greek word for this virtue is usually translated into English as "meekness" or "gentleness.". Meekness is generally considered not an admirable quality–a suggestion of spinelessness or a lack of strength and virility. There is no word in English adequate to fully translate the Greek word. In secular Greek the word is used with a definite atmosphere and flavor. There is always about it a soothing quality–words which will soothe one who is in a state of anger, bitterness or resentment against life. It is used of an ointment that can soothe the pain of an ulcerous wound. It is used of the gentleness in the tone of the voice of a lover. It is used of Cyrus the Persian King acting kindly toward a person who has failed in an allotted task. The opposite of gentleness is abuse and rudeness. It used of horses that have been tamed and become obedient to the reins. Meekness is the opposite of arrogance and pride. In the New Testament some form of the word occurs some fifteen times. It is often associated with love (I Cor. 4:21). In 2 Cor. 10:1 Paul uses gentleness in connection with a word which means just but more than justice, a word which recognizes there are times when justice is unjust–a time to relax the law and deal with people in mercy and love. Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek"–meekness and gentleness are not weakness. They are the opposite of pride, self-assertion, anger, pushiness. It is power under control. It gives the person who has it, the ability to always be angry at the right time and never angry at the wrong time. Jesus displayed righteous anger in cleansing the temple and gentleness when he forgave the woman taken in adultery whom all the orthodox condemned. It is kindness in action. This is quite a word, and worthy of careful thought. Think about it as you keep the Supper today. Realize God, through the Holy Spirit, is seeking to make you a meek and gentle person. Communion Meditation - Self-Control "The fruit of the Spirit is…self-control." Some translations render this word as "temperance", but that is not an adequate word in our culture because to so many people temperance means merely abstinence from alcoholic drinks. Self-control and temperance are a lot more than that. In fact, we ought to be suspicious of the view that we can be good Christians by not doing certain things. To be a Christian is much more a positive thing than it is a negative thing. The Greeks thought the body was in itself bad and evil–the prison, in which the soul somehow got shut up. It is true that the body can act and say and do evil things. But what makes it act? Jesus made it clear that sin comes from within us (Mark 7:20-23). We think of evil things. We let our minds desire what we know to be wrong. Then the evil desire acts on the will and leads it to make a wrong choice. The will directs the tongue or the hand to act, and the evil word is spoken or the evil deed is done. Every time we sin, it is the whole of us that sins and not just a part. Therefore, when we become Christians the Holy spirit works within us as members of the Christian community to learn and develop self-restraint, self-discipline, self-control. That principle applies to all of our life–our thinking, our feeling, and our actions. In a world of self-expression Christians must learn self-control. It describes that strength of spirit by which a person takes hold of oneself, so that one can restrain and control oneself from every evil desire. It is that quality which comes to us when Christ is in our hearts, that quality which makes us able to live in the world, and yet not be directed by the world’s values and standards. In the Lord’s Supper Paul calls upon us to "Examine yourselves" (1 Cor. 11:28) and see how you are doing. Confess your failures and ask for grace to do better next week. ©2000 Myron J. Taylor |