The morality of diligence talks about consistent and persistent actions. This daily devotional looks at how we are to focus on what matters while we are a work in progress.
Nuggets
- The Sanctification Road is a journey, not a teleport, to godliness.
- God wants us to concentrate on being in unity with Him.
To read devotions in the Redo for Godliness series, click the appropriate button below.
Devotions in the Moralities Lead to Godliness series
In the last devotion, we started taking the scenic route from looking at Manton’s sermon entitled The Moralities of Christianity. Our three devotions from Bird’s three additional essential moralities turned into five devotions.
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Let’s see if there are some more nuggets that we can learn from Paul in Philippians.
Let's Put It into Context
The definition of moral, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior.” Morality, then, is “a doctrine or system of moral conduct.” When it is the plural form — moralities — it is a “particular moral principles or rules of conduct.”
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Our morals determine our character. Character, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “the complex of mental and ethical traits marking and often individualizing a person, group, or nation.”
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Diligence is a consistent, persistent effort. We’ve talked about this before.
Devotions in the Consistency Needed for Spiritual Growth series
We Are Still a Work in Progress
“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it …” (Phil. 3: 13 CSB)
The Sanctification Road is a journey, not a teleport, to godliness.
When we ask Jesus to be our Savior and Redeemer, we are changed. We go from being spiritually dead to being spiritually alive.
Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin. The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
However, it is not a one-and-done. We have to work out our salvation. Salvation is deliverance from evil and the consequences of sins to replace them with good and eternal life.
We have to work it out because we still have our sinful nature. We have to determine what sin is in our lives in order to cut it out.
We do that on the Sanctification Road. Sanctification is the transformation of mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration, gradually changes our nature through the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness. Regeneration is the change in us that God brings about when we go from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
Glossary
I know. Sometimes, don’t we wish God would have flipped a switch and changed us now?
Alexander had an interesting take on why God didn’t do that. He wrote, “This [our change] is the only satisfactory evidence that religion exists at all. It is also the chief source of happiness here, and a large ingredient in it hereafter.”
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The challenge we face is that these changes are not always visible. Worse than that, Alexander likened them to the tide — they come and go. This retrograde movement — when we do see it — is why worldview people think disciples are hypocrites.
Well, think about it. We have to do a 180 degree change — in our allegiance if not in our actions. That is a big change.
On top of that, we do nothing to foster the change — except seek God. Only God has the power to cause the change.
Ooo, baby. I have to process what Alexander said next. The changes are not something that would ordinarily happen. Yes, we gain wisdom by diligently studying the topic at hand. We control that.
But the type of wisdom we are talking about here is godly wisdom. It doesn’t come from something in this world. We can only receive it from God.
Because of that, we can’t just rest on our laurels. There is something more we need to attain.
Instead of keeping things at status quo, God sent Jesus to be our Savior and Redeemer. We have to grow in knowledge of Him.
The operative word is grow. It is a daily process, one that won’t be complete until God calls us home.
That may be a change in our way of thinking. I know growing up, all I heard was come and be saved, and you are good to go. Liddon thought this might be the reason Paul included these verses to the Philippians. From what he said previously, they may have gotten the impression it was one-and-done.
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I love how Liddon called it the law of progress. Yes, it is a progression.
It is an upward progress, not a downward progress. It didn’t just deal with the past. It dealt with the future, too.
The progress is to be applied over all of our nature. God isn’t interested in fixing only one or two aspects of our character.
God is going for a total redo.
For some, as Liddon said, that consists mainly of a growth of the mind. I would say that would be applied to those the world considers good people.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
God calls us to grow in our knowledge of Him. That is so we know Him, not so the knowledge can replace Him. Liddon wrote, “Pure intellectualism is apt to fall short even of the lower measures of duty, and when unbalanced by a warm heart and a vigorous will, the mere cultivation of mind makes a man alternately selfish and weak.”
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Liddon said that grace isn’t just a good will gesture from God. It is His actions. “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us” (Eph. 3: 20 ESV).
It is that God carries through on His good will and accomplishes that which we never could.
Paul like to equate our walk or journey through life as a race. We make a decision to run a marathon. We don’t just go out that day and run it.
We have to train for the marathon. We start slow and get our bodies used to running. We learn the right ways to run and the wrong ways. (Oh, yes. We learn what to stay away from doing.)
It takes us months to train. (Okay, for me it would take years.)
Sibbes equated the race to the life of disciples. He reminded us that not everyone’s race is the same. He also told us what can hinder us in the race.
- “Hope of long life.
- “A conceit that when we have given our names to Christ we must bid adieu to all delight.
- “A despair of getting through.”
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Spurgeon reminded us that all we have to do to gain salvation is believe. It isn’t something that we earn. It is what Jesus did for us — and that has been completed.
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Our diligence has to be tied with what the Holy Spirit is doing in us. He is One guiding us down the Sanctification Road.
Diligently Focusing on What Matters
“… But one thing I do …” (Phil. 3: 13 CSB)
God wants us to concentrate on being in unity with Him. We are to imitate God.
Vaughn believed there are two ways to have religion manifest itself in one thing. One way is abstinence of anything non-religious. The other way is more inclusive, when we draw things toward our religion.
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We must focus our lives to ensure they bring glory to God. In that way, we have our purpose in the forefront.
Making the Connections
We have to watch how we use our concept of progress. That is something prized by worldview people. Disciples of Christ have to make sure that their motive for progress is to redo our character to imitate God.
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What is the whole purpose of this change in us? Alexander told us what it is not.
- “Not deliverance from present pain.
- “Not mere deliverance from future misery.
- “Nor, indeed, man’s restoration by itself. If the end were in man he would usurp God’s place.”
We are called to be disciples for God’s glory. Glory expresses the splendor representing the attributes of God resulting from the authority of God.
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How Do We Apply This?
In order to go onward and upward, we have to take stock of where we are. We not only have to figure out where we are but also where we need to grow. Spurgeon warned us we should neither feel self-complacent nor self-satisfied.
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We aren’t going to complete our progression of changing our character to be like God’s until we are called home. While we are still progressing, we have to diligently work on our motives and obedience.
Sibbes gave us a couple of aspects that must make up our diligence. We have to have resolve, fortitude, and cheer.
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Through all of this, we must show our love for Christ. We need to be ready to serve Him.
We can only be disciples of Christ when we have Christ at our center. We can only have success when we work through Christ.
Father God. We want to be diligent. We want to be diligent in the right way. We want to diligently seek You so that we can be like You. Amen.
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
What do you think?
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