A main characteristic of the sinful world is its chaos. Disciples, on the other hand, are called to be sober and even-keeled. This daily devotional looks at how disciples of Christ can use being sober and even-keeled to renew our inner us.
Nuggets
We prepare ourselves for the trials that try to steal our confidence and our relationships with God.
Disciples are to be exercising self-discipline to foster sobriety.
- The foundation of hope is grace that comes when belief is present.
To read devotions in the Redo for Godliness series, click the appropriate button below.
Devotions in the Growing Our Soul series
Have you ever wished salvation was a once-and-done event? God, in all of His magnificence, would proclaim we are now perfect and holy.
- Holy means to be set apart, perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- The perfected state indicates the combination of the spiritual graces which, when all are present, form spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
Glossary
Everything in us would be magically fixed. Only good things would happen from there on out.
Doesn’t. Happen. That. Way.
Instead, we become travelers on the Sanctification Road. It is a bumpy, hilly, curvy road. There is no consistency to it.
The trials and the testings that come on that road cause us to determine just where we are on our relationship with God. Through them all, we are called to be sober or even-keeled.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
Sober is a character trait distinguished by self-control, genuineness, and sound moral judgment.
Preparing Our Minds for Action
“Therefore, preparing your minds for action …” (I Pet. 1: 13 ESV)
We prepare ourselves for the trials that try to steal our confidence and our relationships with God.
Because we are to be sober and even-keeled, Peter said we should prepare our minds. The King James Version says “… gird up the loins of your mind …” (I Pet. 1: 13 KJV). The sermons I read usually took a tighten-your-belt approach to that.
I liked the Christian Standard Bible translation. It said “Therefore, with your minds ready for action …” (I Pet. 1: 13 CSB).
We renew our inner person by training ourselves for what comes our way. We know Satan is going to try to throw things at us. We know God is even going to test us.
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We have to be ready. We are not only to maintain our salvation, but we are also to grow it. We have to be prepared.
Read this sentence through the lens of renewing our minds as God is teaching us to grow. Parker wrote, “Remember, however little the word of revealed truth is to you, it is God’s greatest and best thought: that it is the divine record concerning yourself and His dear Son ought to make it of infinite importance to you. Therefore, ‘gird up the loins of your mind.’ Tighten the belt. You can do better work, run a better race, or be better ready for fight. Then shall you be fitted for the best service the King demands.”
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What did Parker say?
- There are a lot of things about God that we don’t understand. He has revealed only some to us in His Word.
- It doesn’t matter if we think something is a biggy or something minuscule. It tells us about God. That makes what He reveals through His Holy Spirit infinitely more than we realize.
- We need to use what God reveals to us to better our relationships with Him.
- Because we are His, we will have to be ready to fight whatever Satan throws our way.
Spurgeon wrote that tightening our belts helps make us consistent. That helps make us determined.
This is needed because, as Spurgeon wrote, “A true believer should be ready for suffering or service — ready, indeed, for anything.”
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I love what Bird had to say. He wrote, “The Christian life is not an outward thing. The mind is the battlefield. Here the battles are lost or won. How much does the mind require bracing up!”
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We’ve long said that faith is in the mind. This year, we learned that it isn’t just about doing the do’s and not doing the don’ts. It is about being.
Bird reminded us that Christian morality has a nobility about it. We are to have a quiet dignity that breeds patience and diligence.
- Diligence is a consistent, persistent effort.
- Patience is a steadfast endurance in opposition without losing a positive attitude.
To me, that makes a stronger tie with our sobriety. When we think even-keeled, we think patient. When we think sober, we think diligent.
Vaughan argued that, in order to gird our minds, we need to replace vanity with humility. Humility is a character trait that diminishes pride and places dependence on God while holding a modest view of our importance with respect to others.
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Parker said that tightening our belts would help us with our sobriety. It increases our self-control.
Being Sober-Minded
“… and being sober-minded …” (I Pet. 1: 13 ESV)
Disciples are to be exercising self-discipline to foster sobriety.
Another definition Spurgeon presented for sober besides being moderate was to be watchful. I think that goes hand in hand with being even-keeled.
Glossary
We are not to be going to extremes, but we should be grounded in reality. We can focus on God more when we are consistently looking at truth.
Thomas talked about moral judiciousness. He said that judicious deals with “… our opinions, our affections, our expectations, and speech.”
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How does that mesh with soberness? Those are exactly the areas that we should be even keeled as disciples of Christ.
We need to be self-controlled in each area. If we aren’t controlled by God in our opinions, affections, and speech, we damage our witness. If we aren’t self controlled in our expectations, then we could come across as arrogant and uncaring.
Rogers made a great point. Sobriety helps us to keep the laws and commandments. He also said it helps us moderate those laws and commandments which we are keeping.
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We’ve talked before about how someone may interpret one thing as a sin, but someone else doesn’t. Paul told us not to be stumbling blocks for others (Rom. 14: 13).
We said it is better to give up some thing that really isn’t a send them to have you or someone else commit the same because of it. There are things that border sinfulness or could lead to sinfulness.
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God wants us to be thoughtful about what pleases Him. He wants us to make a conscious decision to follow Him.
The Foundation of Hope
“… set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (I Pet. 1: 13 ESV)
The foundation of hope is grace that comes when belief is present.
It was interesting that Vaughan equated grace with patience. Grace is a free and unmerited gift from Heavenly Father given through His Son, Jesus Christ that enables salvation and spiritual healing to believers by the work of the Holy Spirit.
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The Holman Bible Dictionary also said grace was the “undeserved acceptance and love received from another …” Maclaren called it “… the sum of the felicities of a future life.”
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I can see grace being the product of the joy of a life with God.
I guess God has to have a lot of patience with us when He is giving us the free gift of grace — this undeserved acceptance and love.
The hope comes because we have the grace. Hope is a future expectation, called a living hope, based on the confidence that our names will be found in the book of life.
The consistency of sobriety should foster the hope. It brings a harmony to our lives that strengthens us. It calms all the clashing factions in our minds.
But notice where we get this hope — “… the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (I Pet. 1: 13 ESV). Hope comes belief in our Savior.
Maclaren also reminded us that this hope is only maintained by self-discipline. Self-discipline is where we manage ourselves so that we can improve. The self-discipline brings us the self-control, the ability to withstand temptations by managing ourselves — our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.
Bright extended that and said we can train this hope. We do that through self-discipline, too.
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Whoa! Wait a minute. “… the grace that will be brought to you …” (I Pet. 1: 13 ESV). God does the bringing.
God is the one who calls us to salvation.
- Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from evil and the consequences of sins to replace them with good and eternal life.
- The consequences of sin are spiritual death and physical separation from God.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual 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.
- Eternal life is the promise of living eternally – even if we have died in this life – because we have admitted our sins, believed Jesus as Savior and Redeemer, and confessed God as Sovereign Lord.
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
Glossary
God calls everyone to salvation. He doesn’t want one person to perish (I Tim. 2: 4).
This shows that God wants to bestow His peace on us. He wants to provide an environment in which we can be even-keeled.
Making the Connections
Bird reminded us what the end goal is — holiness. We are sober and even-keeled to be able to navigate the Sanctification Road to achieve holiness and righteousness.
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What that entails is obedience. Obedience means to hear, conform to, and carry out the instructions that God gives us.
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Disobedience allows the chaos to run unchecked. We need to remain true to Him.
How Do We Apply This?
- We are obedient to God’s laws and commandments.
- We listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
- We need to choose God’s way.
Father God. We love You. We choose You and Your ways. Give us grace. Give us strength. Amen.
What do you think?
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