“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defense against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head.”
-C. S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man
To my knowledge, no-one who experiences moral failure set out to end up there. No-one gets up in the morning and declares that it looks like a good day to fail. Failure is not a goal; it is a consequence of choices made along the way. So how can we avoid moral failure? I think these six principles will help:
Do you have any that you would like to add? Please add them to the comments below.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,” (Ephesians 1:3, NASB)
When I read this verse, there is something that haunts me. Paul tells me that I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing. The verb is past tense, so it has already happened. Why then do I often feel so unblessed?
It seems that if I were to appropriate this promise that my life would be lived differently. This is what haunts me.
The question then becomes, “what inhibits me from appropriating this promise?” The truthful answer is that I don’t really know what holds me back.
Perhaps it is because I am unable to imagine what “every spiritual blessing” looks like. It must be independent of my circumstances, but it doesn’t feel that way. Often my circumstances cause me to look to the heavens and ask “what happened?” This is in spite of the fact that I’ve had it easier in life than many. Yet, I struggle to look beyond the stuff that is in front of my and see beyond.
Perhaps it is because my understanding of God is too small. As a result, my trust is too small. If I really understood God and his expectations for me, I might live differently. I might be more inclined to act and less inclined to wait until the opportunity is passed.
I do not know whether to admire or pity those who seem so presumptuous in appropriating all the blessings in the Bible. Yet, when I read those promises, there is a nagging sense in the back of my mind that perhaps these who pursue with such reckless abandon are the ones who have it right after all.
Every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places has been my blessing. Perhaps I will start living that way.
How about you?
“It is a mistake to measure spiritual maturity merely by the presence of gifts. By themselves they are an inadequate basis for a man’s lasting influence for God. They may be present and they may be valuable, but the Spirit’s object is something far greater – to form Christ in us through the working of the cross. His goal is to see Christ inwrought in believers. So it is not merely that man does certain things or speaks certain words, but that he is a certain kind of man. He himself is what he preaches. Too many want to preach without being the thing themselves, but in the long run it is what we are, and not simply what we do or say, that matters with God, and the difference lies in the formation of Christ within.”
– Miles Stanford
