The Standard

“Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.” -Philippians 4:5

 The Lord is at hand.  While we cannot know when we will be called to the judgement seat, we know we will be called.  With this backdrop Paul exhorts us to let our moderation be known.  He counsels us to let our temperance reflect a people that believe the Lord is at hand.  A people who have committed ourselves to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and consider ourselves dead and our life hid with Christ in God.

Often, I have heard mentioned the phrase “all things in moderation.”  Meaning whatever you do, keep it moderate.  If you want ice cream, fine, don’t eat a truckload of ice cream.  If you want to go sailing, fine, but don’t spend your whole life on a sailboat.  In most cases and in most things we as humanity practice our calibrated concept of moderation, and because we do this, moderate is given a measurable standard by our society.  For example, the five day, forty-hour work week.  With that said, if we seek to demonstrate moderation with society as our standard of measurement; then that measure can and will change.  When the Apostle Paul writes the Lord is at hand, he is not introducing a new standard but the standard.  This principle is the true north with which we then measure our degree of moderation, and consequently the degree of our extreme.  We should seek to moderate ourselves against the fact that the Lord is at hand.  Imagine if tomorrow you were given a hundred-thousand-dollar inheritance, how would you moderate that money?  Would it all be given to leisure?  Or all to sustenance?  Security?  Charity?  How you dispensed of that money would reflect not only what you believed but how you felt about the one who gave it. Our life on earth is so finite and to spend it on ourselves, even in the moderation permitted by society is still extremely out of balance in the eyes of Almighty God.  Suffice to say that if we who are not of the world are indulging in the world as much as, or more than, those who love this carnal world then our moderation will be known unto no man.  It will be known to no man because we have no moderation.  We are gluttonous Christians fat on ourselves.  Conversely, if we are so religious as to neglect our family, friends, and basic duties then we are starving the world of the witness of Christ ensconced in our cocoon of so-called piety.  Neither case would it seem reasonable that we genuinely believe the Lord is at hand. However, if we believe the Lord is at hand and we care for the gift as well as the giver, we will take care in how we dispense with our time here on earth.  What we do with our time here on earth is chronicled in the pages of history and we will stand before judgment for every second vouchsafed to us.  We will stand before the Christ who gave everything and give account for everything. 

Knowing this, when we moderate our daily lives as though the Lord is at hand it will differ drastically with the world.  It’s the retired couple who could travel the world but instead adopted an orphan child.  It’s the trim carpenter who could expand his business but instead uses the extra time to visit inmates.  The very nature of Christ centered moderation invites curiosity.  Which in turn produces questions, then allows for testimony that hopefully leads to revelation.  Once the Holy Ghost has revealed truth, that person(s) can accept or reject and because of this, our moderate living is in effect an active agent to glorify God and His Christ.  Which is why it is paramount we let our moderation be known unto all men.  This we can only do if we are living moderate Christ centered lives.  Something the devil would soon tempt us away from.