Focus: Rule of Right Reason and Conscience

Do worldly impulses destroy our joy and happiness?

Colossians 3:5 So put to death your worldly impulses: sexual sin, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry. It is because of these thing that the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient. You used to behave like them as you lived among them. But now you must also get rid of anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene speech, and all such sins. Do not lie to one another, for you have stripped off the old nature with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new nature, which is being renewed in full knowledge, consistent with the image of the one who created it. In Him, there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, enslaved person, or free person. Instead, the Messiah is all and in all.

Is it possible that if we can put these worldly impulses to death, we might find happiness? I think so!

It is necessary to subdue sins because they will conquer us if we do not conquer them. There must be a rule of right reason and conscience over appetite and passion.

What I am when alone in the presence of God is what I am. What I am before my friends should be the outcome; otherwise, my public life will be primarily a sham. If I am right toward others, I must be right in my inner life.

Proverbs 4:23 Above everything else guard your heart, because from it flow the springs of life.

The heart is the center of the physical system, out of which flow the issues of life. The heart, or soul, is also the moral and spiritual center. It must be jealously guarded so only that which is edifying comes forth.

Galatians 5:24 Now those who belong to the Messiah Jesus have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in the Messiah, he is a new creation. Old things have disappeared, and look! All things have become new!

"What you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say." Ralph Waldo Emerson