Month: August 2024

 “So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” 1 Corinthians 10:31 NIV

I have seen this verse posted different places to remind us that no matter what we are doing we are to do our best to glorify God while we are doing it. That is a tall order but it is what we, as Christians are to strive to do…..everything for God. A new Christian may find this verse overwhelming, which I can understand. So let’s look at the context a little.

Paul is writing to the Corinthians and he is addressing the idolatry that was rampant in Corinth. Food and drink were used a lot in Paul’s time as examples of how to bring glory or not to God which is how it is being used here. As he wrote to the Christians in Corinth, he was trying to help them understand that even the smallest of things that they did could be done either for God or not. The non-Christians in Corinth were idol worshippers but were still family members of the new Christians, which meant that they were still in the Christians’ lives and ate meals with them.

Being a Christian back then, as it is now, was hard. It was a new way of thinking and living that was not steeped in years of tradition. The leader of this way of thinking and living had been crucified on a cross, one of the most violent ways to be killed in that day, as well as a way that was reserved for the worst criminals. So everything that a Christian did was looked at closely by others to see if the Christian was truly following this new way of living. If Christians chose to follow the rules of their new way of thinking and living only on some days and not others, than they were no less a hypocrite than anyone else who chose when they were willing to worship whatever idol they were choosing to worship.

Paul is trying to help the new Christians of Corinth to understand that God created us, that He is the One True God. That as His creation, He gave them free will which allows them, His creations, to choose to honor Him or to ignore Him in everything they did each day. Paul informs the Christians of his day that honoring God was not reserved for only certain days or certain actions. They were able to honor God every day and with ALL of their actions.

Paul’s teaching is relevant today as well. We are able to honor God in everything we do each and every day. Things as ordinary as eating and drinking, can be used to honor God or dishonor Him. Most importantly, our intentions in regards to our thoughts and our actions are what we should be paying attention to each day. Are we working at our job to simply pay our bills, or have we considered that maybe God has placed us in our current job to show someone the Light of Jesus through us? Do we complete our tasks around the house so that the house looks nice or could our intention be to purposefully take care of what God has blessed us with in this life?

God is alive, not like the idols made of pieces of wood, bronze, gold, silver. He can speak and interact with His creation, much like a parent is able to interact with their child. In the same way that a child can honor or dishonor their parent, we can honor or dishonor God. As His creation, His children, we can show Him how we feel about being His child.

God has given each one of us everything we need to live life on this earth, from our ability to do the tasks we need to do to make a living, to the desire to love the people in our lives. We can choose to live our lives being thankful or not. We can choose to bring honor to our Creator or not and no action is too small to be used to bring that honor.

What do you choose to do today? Bring honor to God with all of your being, in everything you do or not? The choice is yours.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23 NIV

The last area of the Fruit of the Spirit is self-control. A person who has good self-control is able to prolong gratification, make wise choices and keep their thoughts in line with the will of God. A person who does not have good self-control tends to do impulsive things, say what they are thinking as soon as it comes into their mind and make choices that end up causing them trouble at some point.

Why would self-control be part of the Fruit of the Spirit? When I think of a person who is demonstrating the Fruit of the Spirit as a whole, I think of a loving person, who puts others first, who is calm, generous and loyal. I believe that if that person was not able to control their thoughts, their feelings and/or their actions then they would not be able to be a loving, calm, generous, loyal person who puts others before themselves.

To be loving, you have to control your thoughts of distrust and hate. To be calm, you have to control your feelings of excitement or depression. To be generous, you have to control your thoughts of wanting to keep what you have for yourself and your actions of actually giving what you have away. To be loyal, you have to control all of those because our thoughts about distrust which can turn to feelings of depression. When you are depressed, you are not as likely to be thinking of others or very giving of your time or resources.

Controlling oneself can be difficult if we try to do it on our own. As we develop this area of the Fruit of the Spirit, as with each of the other areas, we need to rely on God for help. He put the seed of each one of the areas inside of us and He is the One who is able to water the seed, feed the seed with His word and help it to grow. Trying to grow or develop this characteristic in particular by your own power can be problematic because of how intertwined it is with the other areas.

Sometimes I think that this area is the hardest area to develop/grow into maturity. As the sinful, immediate gratification seeking people that we are, telling our flesh ‘no’ can be difficult. If we struggle with small areas of control such as what we say out oud or what we eat or what we watch, how much more difficult can maintaining our desire to follow God’s will be?

God asks us to make statements and perform actions that we do not have the strength to say or do on our own. The wonderful news is that we don’t have to do any of it on our own. God is willing to be with us each day, in every situation, letting us lean on Him and giving us what we need to do what He is asking. That is great, but there is one thing we have to do and that is be willing to let Him help us.

We have to be willing to say ‘Lord, please help me’. We have to be willing to follow His lead when He instructs us on what we are to say and how we are to say it. We need to follow His lead about what He wants us to do and how He wants us to perform the action. We have to be able to take whatever amount of self-control we posses and use it so that we don’t run away from God when He asks us to make a statement that we don’t believe we can make. We need to not run when He asks us to perform an action that we don’t believe we can perform.

The number of times over the years that I have argued with God about saying something to another person that I felt uncomfortable saying because I didn’t know how they would respond, is too large a number for me to even imagine. The sad thing is that what God was asking me to say may have been exactly what that person needed to hear, but I was not willing to control my fear and rely on God in that moment.

I have developed this area over the years, but I am not even close to where I need to be. Thankfully I believe God isn’t done with me yet and is still there to help me each step of the way.

Do you struggle with self-control? If you do, have you ever asked God for help in this area? Be ware though, because just like patience, the only way to develop self-control is to experience situations where self-control is required. I believe that every one of us can do this with God’s help. He is not willing to leave any of us behind, so I encourage you to go to Him and ask Him for help today. Don’t put it off, He is waiting for each one of us, patiently.

Have a great day and stay connected to God.