“Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.” (Philippians 4:5) Moderation seems to have been quite lost in our society today. We can see it as we drive down the road at the maximum legal speed of 55mph and watch cars fly past us and down the road. A little while ago, we were traveling on a fairly well-filled four-lane highway, when someone who was parked at the end of a driveway on the other side of the road apparently decided that he had to cross at any cost. He successfully crossed two lanes before colliding with the car directly ahead of us.

A story tells of artists who were asked to paint a picture of what they considered “peace.” One painted a picture of a lake in the mountains, while another painted a picture of a raging waterfall, with a bird almost in the spray serenely enjoying its nest. This illustration has been used as an example of Biblical peace. However, while our peace here on earth will be found in the midst of obstacles, there is an even higher form of peace that Christians will find when with Christ, that peace is a restoration of the sinless closeness to God that man enjoyed before the fall.

Forgiveness is essential to the Christian. “But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.” (Mark 11:26) When we forgive someone, we give up our bitterness and our desire to get even. In our heart, we release the person who hurt us. “To forgive is to grant pardon without harboring resentment.” (American Heritage Dictionary) When we consider the entire scope of the Bible, we can realize that when we don’t forgive other people, we are the ones who are being “unfair.” This is because, due to our own sins, we owe a debt to God that all the offenses in the world will not be sufficient punishment for—we deserve every offense that people give to us, and it’s not “fair” at all for us to be upset about something that we truly deserved.

Matthew 4 records an interesting element of the devil’s assault on Christ. “Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” (Matthew 4:5-7) This temptation happened on an exalted part of the temple itself, the building that was supposed to be for the worship of God. In this case, however, the devil ended up trying to use it to further his cause.

The author of Hebrews used the Old Testament story of Esau to provide a powerful warning for our day when he said, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.” (Hebrews 12:14-17) The story of Esau’s birthright gives us a dramatic word of caution, showing us the awful results of failure to esteem spiritual treasures at their true value.

When this passage describes Esau as profane, the word doesn’t necessarily have the connotation of cursing and swearing that it has today. But the passage seems to make it clear that the word refers to the lack of respect Esau gave to the value of his birthright.

Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24) It’s easy for us to think of serving mammon as trying to get rich; then the verse does not apply to us because “trying to get rich” seems like something for Bill Gates, or John Rockefeller, or Andrew Carnegie, not us—we feel that we’re just “making a living” or “working toward a goal.” And maybe we are.

It is very important to have right doctrine; in fact, some wrong doctrines are so bad that a true Christian cannot even let those who hold the doctrines inside his house (II John 1:10). Wrong doctrine can be an important sign of inner corruption (I Timothy 4:1). But right doctrine will not rescue someone who is not completely committed to God.

This article is part of a series.

In the last article in this series, I discussed how religion was linked to the nation in Old Covenant Israel. The true religion was tied to Israel, and it was disadvantageous to be a Gentile. In the New Covenant, however, the true religion is decoupled from the state. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) Paul is saying here that now the people of God no longer have a national identity; rather, they are distributed throughout the nations of the world. Their identity is in Christ instead of their country. “But in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” (Acts 10:35)

In my article Peace on Earth, I discussed Jesus’ words, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34) Immediately after this pronouncement, He explains some of the division that His gospel would cause. “For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.” (Matthew 10:35-36) Following this, He tells us the cost of Christianity.

Reading the gospels, we may get the idea that when Jesus healed people, He simply spoke, and, just because of His great power, the person was healed. No cost, no pain, no trouble. That’s how we would like to start revival in our churches, too.