A Life in Balance

I believe that God wants us to live a life that is in balance. Everything that is written in scripture points to balance. In 1 Corinthians chapter 13 it talks about love throughout the whole chapter. In verse one it states, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” In verse two it goes on to say, “And if I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” At the end of the chapter in verse 13 it says, “But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

God wants us to walk in faith, hope and love, and although faith and hope are great, they are nothing without love. I believe that love is the greatest part of the Christian life and that we are always to show love as God’s ministers. I do believe though that at times we have done things incorrectly because we believe that love means that we are to be sweet and totally submitted to helping people even when they are doing wrong. It is a like a child that will not mind their parents or a person that comes to the church or any minister for that matter for help. Everything should be taken into consideration before you elect to help or not to help. If a child is not minding their parents and they are becoming rebellious and are being disrespectful to other adults, then you as a parent need to love them enough to discipline the child accordingly because in doing so you will save the child from bad behavioral patterns latter on in life that may hinder them on the job or in everyday life. You want your child to be blessed but if you don’t lay down rules and guidelines, how can they be? For instance, you are a child of God and you are doing everything you know how to do right but there are areas that the Holy Spirit keeps convicting you on and you continue to do it your way because you want to? Well, the Holy Spirit knows that if you continue down that path and do not correct your ways that you will never be blessed and it may lead you down a path of destruction after a while the Holy Spirit will discipline you in order to get you back on the right path so that you can continue to hear from God. If we expect this type of guidance from our Heavenly Father, then why wouldn’t we expect to give the same type of guidance to our children?

The same thought goes with the people that come into our lives wanting help. There are several scriptures that point out that we are to guide them in the right way. In one scripture God tells his disciples, that if you give a man a fish that he will eat for a day but that if you teach a man to fish that he will eat for a life time. A lot of times we hinder people not because we help them once but because we continue to help them even after they have proven that they are not willing to work and help themselves. Sometimes they have a mentality that everyone should be in the business of helping them and that is a very unhealthy attitude to have. To love someone is to tell them when they are doing wrong, not to feel as if to say something would be un-Christ like. It is funny to me how many people in this world go by the dictates of others when it comes to their walk with the Lord and they do not follow the scriptures when it comes to dealing with situations in every day life. Simply put, people would rather run to man concerning their problems than to run to God and see what He has to say concerning a situation.

In the case of misbehaving child, God Himself says that He loves those that He chastises. He also says that to spare the rod is to spoil the child. In the realms of someone that is always wanting a hand out there are many scriptures that pertain to that as well. One in particular Jesus says, “If you don’t work you don’t eat.” I don’t recall him saying that He is flexible on this. It also says that Peter was being asked by a beggar for money when he was coming into town and Peter’s comment was, “Silver and Gold have I none but what I do have I freely give.” We don’t know all the circumstances surrounding this but I am sure that the man had been there for a while and I believe that the Holy Spirit told Peter that the man was not in need of a hand out but a way out and that the way out was through a life change with God.

There are many other scriptures in the bible that pertains to these items that I have brought up but I am not going to give the scriptures to you. I want you to study for yourselves what the scriptures have to say. It is not enough to listen to others and assume that they know what they are talking about from a biblical perspective; God says that we are to study to show ourselves approved and I believe that the only way we are ever going to walk in victory is to do just that. For too long we have lived either on the side of Love or the side of the Law. Neither are bad, both - in balance are the perfect equation to a perfect Christian life. You see if we demonstrate too much love then it is not love at all but merely the lack of ability to take a stand and stand on love which is sometimes disciplining. But on the same note, if we are demonstrating nothing but the law then we are putting people under condemnation for things that are taken out of context. It is time to live by the Word of God and to let the Holy Spirit be the convicting voice in our lives. We are to walk out our own salvation with fear and trembling by listening to the guidance of the Holy Spirit and read the Word of God knowing that when we have fellowship with God and are guided by His spirit that we are more effective witnesses for His kingdom and that we will do mighty things in His name. The choice is yours; will you live a life of balance or a life that will cripple you from being an effective Christian? Today is the day to make a change and the choice is yours.