“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.
