God does not want an equal share; He wants all of us!
Sermon by J.K. Townsley
Paraphrased by Sherry Collins
Scripture Text: Daniel 5:25-28
A survey of 1220 American adults revealed the following feelings about their lives: 68 percent need more fun; 67 percent need a long vacation; 66 percent often feel stressed; 60 percent feel their time is crunched; 51 percent want less work and more play; 48 percent feel overwhelmed.
I’ve always been an advocate for a balanced life. Balancing work, family, rest, recreation, and God has always seemed like such a good ambition. There is a great virtue in being able to give proper attention to each of these important areas of our life. Proverbs 11:1 “A false balance is an abomination to the Lord….” In I Corinthians 11:26-32, Paul teaches the necessity of examining our lives to make sure we aren’t out of balance. However, I have learned something new about it that I want to share with you.
First, Balance is not always possible to maintain. Here’s an example: A man spinning plates. Eventually you get too many plates spinning and you can’t keep up and things start to fall apart. This leads to the Second point: Guilt.
Guilt is the state of knowing you’ve done wrong, the feeling of remorse for doing so, conduct that deserves punishment. Often you feel it at church. We seek for balance and wind up feeling guilt for our excesses and our neglects. Guilt is a joy killer that robs us of peace and weakens our faith. Somehow I don’t think God meant for the pursuit of balance to always end up leading us to guilt. In Romans 8:1 we learn, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”Deuteronomy 6:4-7 states God’s priorities. Love the Lord with “all” your heart, soul and might. There is no balance there. “All” means all!
Sure, God wants us to have balance, but He wants all of us on the scales, not just an equal portion after work, family, rest and recreation. There is no talk of balance in this verse, only reference to pure devotion. Our attempts at balancing our lives just aren’t going to cut it. It will always leave us feeling guilty for neglect in one area, or excess in another. No matter how good we try to be, we will always be messing up something. Just like those spinning plates, something will eventually break.
Is our idea of balance out of tune with God’s? God doesn’t want to share an equal part of our lives with everything else. He wants to be first. In Matthew 6:33 we are told to “… seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Priority with a promise. When God is first, somehow everything else falls into place. I wish I could explain this better to you, but some things must be experienced. It isn’t an easy task to find balance, but it starts with selling out completely to God: Loving Him with your ALL!
Leave a Reply