February 19, 2017

Balance

Never think that a balanced life is a boring life.
Imagine holding fire in one hand while carrying ice in the other. A supernatural ability is needed or we will either burn or freeze or drop them both. This is the challenge of the balanced yet passionate life. This spiritual truth is illustrated in nature.

Our Sense of Balance
If we try to walk a straight line without a sense of balance, the easiest of exercises becomes an Olympian feat. Through the mysterious mechanisms of the inner ear, we stride the earth confidently with little thought of losing control and tumbling to the ground. The balance required by standing and sitting, walking and running, or ascending or descending steps is natural and taken thoroughly for granted.

Balance in internal things takes more effort on our part.
It does not come naturally to any of us. Spiritual balance is the center set point between powerful opposite forces:

• Work and rest,
• Worship and service,
• Passion and patience,
• Love for God and love for people,
• Impulse and strategy,
• Thought and feeling,
• Logic and instinct,
• Reason and intuition,
• Spirit and truth,
• Improvisation and planning,
• Jumping in and holding back,
• Spending and saving, and so on ad infinitum

We need an inner spiritual ear to keep us from tumbling in our spiritual walk before God and mankind.

The Lord has promised just such a thing for us in the New Covenant.
In fact the four promises of the New Covenant, converge in our hearts to give us this supernatural balance.

Hebrews 8:10-12
This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. (1) I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. (2) I will be their God, and they will be my people. (3) No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. (4) For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

How do these promises function as a mysterious mechanism providing spiritual balance? Take them in reverse order:

1. Our sins are really, completely, forever forgiven, clearing the way for the Spirit of God to do His promised work in our hearts.
2. The abiding Spirit supplies us with an intuition that comes directly from the Lord and goes beyond any human instruction we may receive. In other words we have an internal capacity to know spiritual things.
3. Through the ministry of the Spirit, we are in intimate, round the clock, personal relationship with the Lord. We have God’s undivided attention.
4. His Word is being written in our hearts by the fiery fingers of the Spirit much like the divine inscription Moses saw in Sinai. Really, this writing of the Word in our hearts is better than the Law written in stone; this is Grace written in love.

Caution: We should never think that our every thought amounts to the Word of God.
If we think that, we have lost our balance already. God writes His Word into our hearts when we read it, study it, reflect on it, meditate on it, memorize it, quote it, and, above all, obey it!

With His Word written in our hearts we can walk confidently in the Spirit today. We have an inner ear deep in our spirit keeping us upright, on mission, on schedule, and ready for every opportunity the day will bring.

This life is balanced and anything but boring!

Scriptures:
1 John 1:5-7
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
Psalm 1:1-3
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.
1 Thessalonians 2:10-12 NKJV
You are witnesses, and God also, how devoutly and justly and blamelessly we behaved ourselves among you who believe; as you know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.
Galatians 5:16-18; 25 NKJV
…Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus, Keep me upright today! Help me keep my eyes on You. Help me remember the light You have shone on my path in your Word. Help step carefully in the lamp You provide for my feet—that same Word. I do not intend to walk in the council of the wicked today, or to make my stand with those who sin, or take my seat among those who berate Your Holy Name. I will listen for your voice in the sounds of creation as well as in the voices of those around me. I will ignore the siren call of the world although it calls from every corner it seems. With your help I will walk in the light and not fall. Thank You, Jesus! Amen.

Song:
Each Step I Take
Words and Music: Elmo Mercer

1. Each step I take my Savior goes before me,
And with His loving hand He leads the way.
And with each breath I whisper, “I adore Thee;”
Oh, what joy to walk with Him each day.

Refrain:
Each step I take I know that He will guide me;
To higher ground He ever leads me on.
Until some day the last step will be taken.
Each step I take just leads me closer home.

2. At times I feel my faith begin to waver,
When up ahead I see a chasm wide.
It’s then I turn and look up at my Savior,
I am strong when He is at my side.

Refrain

3.I trust in God, no matter come what may,
For life eternal is in His hand.
He holds the key that opens up the way,
That will lead me to the promised Land.

Refrain

Semper Reformanda!
Stephen Phifer

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