spiritual stuff

I love, love, love to read stories about tithing like this one.  Scott and I have always been firm believers in tithing 10% on the gross amount and even when we first got married, I was working part-time in college and he wasn’t making much to brag about, we always, always have had enough.  Now I can’t say we are fabulous stewards of the money we have right now and I’m not proud of that but whenever I hear of people having financial troubles, the first thing I ask is if the tithe and usually they don’t.  Yes, people that tithe are tight on money too but they are always are provided for and sometimes, like in Cindy’s case, He gets to show off and rain down money from Heaven.

In one week I’ll be starting the Read the Bible in 90 Days initiative.  I got my participant’s guide in in the mail yesterday.  There is still room to join if you are interested.  I looked at the schedule and it seems you average about 10-15 chapters.  Not bad at all to me.

I’m looking forward to finally saying I’ve read the entire thing straight through but let me tell you, I really feel like Satan is trying to talk me out of it.  Not to get all spiritual-warfare-y on you but I feel like he’s throwing up every reason why I shouldn’t…things I’ve done that I shouldn’t, reasons I’m too busy to do it, thinking I won’t finish if I start.  So I’m taking that as a sign that this will be good for me and I’m pressing on.

Today something very cool happened. My bible study, Sunday School lesson and the pastor’s sermon all converged. Little pieces from each add up to answer a question I’ve had personally and actually had thought about posting in the last few weeks. The topic it surrounds is drinking alcohol. Let me tell you how I’ve run into this 3 different times…

In my Beth Moore’s Living Beyond Yourself, Fruit of the Spirit study, we are studying how we live by the spirit with gentleness this week. Beth says there are several aspects to gentleness, one being humility. She uses John the Baptist as an example of a humble person. In Matthew 11:11, Jesus says John is greater than any man that has lived. Wow. God saying that is pretty cool. It’s sort of like that “well done, my child” that we all want to hear. But in the you’ve done it better than ANYONE ELSE kind of way. Whatever he did to earn that is worth looking into.. In Luke 1:15-17, I found it interesting that out of all the things they choose to note about this great man, one of the few is that he would never drink wine or fermented drink.

Let me stop there and bring it together later.

As for Sunday School, I mentioned I taught on wisdom. One of the activities the lesson plan had us do is read Ephesians 5:15-20 and help us see this is basically showing the difference between doing wise versus foolish things and had us list out some things in each category. One of the things listed in there was do not get drunk on wine. In contrast, we should be filled with the spirit and live by the spirit.

I’ll leave that there and go on to the sermon from today.

So guess what verses the pastor had us turn to today? Ephesians 5:15-20. Seriously. Because God is cool like that. Anyway. I won’t go into the whole sermon but the general theme of it was we should desire to live by the Spirit. Specifically, one of the first comments he made was when you are controlled by alcoholism, you do things you’d never thought you’d do but when you are controlled by the Spirit, you also do things you never thought you could possibly do. And on my own what did I find the difference was? When you do things under the influence of alcohol, most times you can’t wait to forget it yet when you do things under the control of the Spirit, you never want to forget it.

So that’s my three separate incidences in just this week.

So my question has been, why have I never drank and don’t continue to drink?  Is drinking one drink a sin?  Is it only a sin when you are drunk?  And if so, what is considered drunk?

I honestly don’t know if I have all the answers.  I do know this…

I think the Bible is pretty clear being drunk is a sin.  It is listed several times throughout Scripture in several lists of “bad things”.  I think it gets shady when you are talking 1 or 2 drinks when people are not drunk but they have consumed alcohol.  Is that a sin?  I don’t know.  I took the easy way out right?  But here is what I do know.  Jesus called John the greatest man ever and he never drank at all.  I’m sort of shooting for that label or at least a well done, my child so I feel good so far I’ve chosen never to drink.

But let’s say I choose to hypothetically.  Am I drunk now?  What’s God’s legal limit?  Can it be .04? .08? .12?  Is it when you say you’re drunk or when you can’t say the alphabet backwards?  Is it when you can’t drive a car or when you start puking your guts up?  People say they know their limits but I’m guessing you’d have to be drunk a time or two to know your limits and then it’s a little too late…you’ve already sinned.  Let’s say because of your former life you definitely know your limits and you will not get drunk at one drink.  Again, what constitutes drunk?  Assuming you aren’t drunk by whatever God’s standards are, you should be “fine” I suppose with that line of thinking.

But is that really what we’re after here?  To know what we can get away with?  No.  Not for me.  My goal is as it states in Ephesians 5 is to be filled with the Spirit.  It even says to make the most of every opportunity.  We are here for such a short time and only have so much time to make a difference for Christ, to fulfill that purpose He has for us.  I want every second to count.  Do they all?  No way.  I fail to make Him my priority 99% of the time.  But that’s my goal.

And if I have to spend my time trying to decide if what I’m doing may or may not be wrong, I’m probably not living by the Spirit.  As Scott’s mentor told him as a teenager, if you have to ask whether it’s wrong, it probably is.  I’m not suggesting drinking one drink of alcohol is a sin.  I’m not suggesting it isn’t either.  What I’m saying is as Christians we should be so consumed with living by the Spirit, that we don’t have time to do that much less think about doing it.  Coming back to what my pastor said this morning, he said we should not be satisfied with anything but being controlled by the Spirit.  I’m not.  I want more.  So for me, not drinking isn’t about whether one drink is ok or not.  It’s not about how much it takes to get me drunk.  It’s about concentrating on what God has for me to do, living by the Spirit so much that I’m not even taking a fraction of a second thinking about it.  That anything that is even a hint of sin repulses me.  I want the mind of Christ.  And for some reason, I’m thinking He doesn’t think too much about His next drink.  I don’t mean that to be flippant or sarcastic or scathing.  I’m serious.  I really don’t think if I have the mind of Christ I would even stop to think of doing it.  But that’s just me.  And the good news is God’s grace and mercy and forgiveness is enough to cover us even if we do mess up.  I thank God I’ve never had to deal with drinking or alcoholism in my family or with myself and I seriously send out a heartfelt prayer for those that do.  God is big enough to heal any wound.  Or even enough to keep us from it.