No matter the situation or context, no matter the “craziness” going on around us, the Christian is that person who sets themselves to still thinking about and focusing on the things of the Spirit. Are there distractions? Yes! There will always be distractions…perhaps it is our focus on God in the midst of distraction which is so necessary for our growth and faith and life. 

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.  For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.Romans 8:5-6
I first wrote these meditations in the early months of the COVID pandemic when everyone was isolated at home, and it struck me how much I and other brothers and sisters needed to meditate deeply upon God’s word. Essentially, I was attempting to help my church and anyone else who would read these do precisely what Paul says Christians do in Romans 8:5 – setting our minds on the things of the Spirit. Even now, this reminds me of a famous sermon C.S. Lewis preached in Oxford in 1939, right at the outset of WW2 and during the German blitzkrieg where German bombs were continually dropping on England day and night. Lewis, asking what should students do in the midst of such turmoil, when the world was seemingly coming to an end, answered thus:
“The peculiar difficulty imposed on you by the war is another matter, and of it I would again repeat what I have been saying in one form or another ever since I started—do not let your nerves and emotions lead you into thinking your predicament more abnormal than it really is. Perhaps it may be useful to mention the three mental exercises which may serve as defenses against the three enemies which war raises up against the scholar.
The first enemy is excitement—the tendency to think and feel about the war when we had intended to think about our work. The best defense is a recognition that in this, as in everything else, the war has not really raised up a new enemy but only aggravated an old one. There are always plenty of rivals to our work. We are always falling in love or quarrelling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable.
Favorable conditions never come. There are, of course, moments when the pressure of the excitement is so great that only superhuman self-control could resist it. They come both in war and peace. We must do the best we can.”
In essence, Lewis maintains that we should give our minds and effort to business as usual, as best we can. I think this is right in line with what Paul is getting at in Romans 8, verses 5-6. No matter the situation or context, no matter the “craziness” going on around us, the Christian is that person who sets themselves to still thinking about and focusing on the things of the Spirit. Are there distractions? Yes! There will always be distractions – some certainly greater than others. But perhaps it is our focus on God in the midst of distraction which is so necessary for our growth and faith and life. Isn’t this what Paul says in verse 6?
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Where God communicates His will it is my duty to not just be quiet, but to desire obedience unto His word and to lovingly follow as a sheep following my Shepherd. Both the 2nd and 4th Commandment have become provocative in our Reformed circles, and they should not be. This is a case where our forefathers were not necessarily “more holy” than us, but they were in this situation without a doubt wiser.

I am going to do my best not to make our walk through the commandments boring and/or monotonous. Whenever you start a long journey it is best to mentally prepare yourself for the length. I often joke that in a former life I was a long-haul truck driver because I can get in a car and zone out and make a ten-hour drive feel like a half-hour. However, not a lot of people are like that (ask my kids). The hope is by the time we get to the Tenth Commandment you have not completely checked out and are not pulling a Roberto Duran chanting NO MAS! NO MAS!
My goal is to help you see the beauty of Christian ethics. It is where our faith meets real life. We need to understand that it is worth the effort to examine what God would have us to do and to be, because as we seek to obey the Lord we will begin to experience a devotional peace in which by submitting ourselves to Jesus and confessing that as we see the wisdom and attractiveness of the way He has ordered His creation with more clarity, our hearts will be tied to Christ as a wife is to a husband. There is a lot to be said for that type of loyalty. Fidelity to our confession of faith matters. Our belief that there is no hope outside our Redeemer is worked out in what we do when we make decisions and act in the world. While it may seem as if that kind of moral principle is really for the second table of the law, the first table is just as practical for our day-to-day.
Let’s go ahead and get to our catechism questions for this morning as we start to get into how that works:
Q. 49. Which is the Second Commandment?
A. The second commandment is, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
Q. 50. What is Required in the Second Commandment?
A. The second commandment requires the receiving, observing, and keeping pure and en­tire, all such religious worship and ordinances as God hath appointed in his word.
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Written by Jason K. Allen |
Thursday, September 2, 2021
In many ways, ministry is like marriage; you sacrifice for, love, and serve the body of Christ. You cannot do this—you will not do this—unless you serve out of a heart of love.

Have you ever known a married couple who confessed they didn’t love each other? I have, and trust me, there is nothing more painful. As a husband, I can’t imagine waking up every morning beside a woman I didn’t love. I pity such a person.
On a couple of occasions, I’ve had such couples meet with me. Their stories tend to be similar. Life is rote. Their relationship is boring. They are married, but they feel more like individuals sharing a home and splitting the bills. For these people, romance left town long ago. They feel trapped because they understand divorce isn’t an option.
I can’t imagine the boredom, frustration, and disappointment that type of life must entail, especially for those who, like me, believe that marriage is between one man and one woman for life.
This is what one who enters the ministry without a love for the church will feel. In many ways, ministry is like marriage; you sacrifice for, love, and serve the body of Christ. You cannot do this—you will not do this—unless you serve out of a heart of love.
Perhaps you’ve seen pastors like this. They look for every opportunity to be away from their congregation. They erect barriers between themselves and their church. They view other activities, ministerial or otherwise, as more important and more satisfying than just serving God’s people. They seem to view God’s people as an interruption to their ministry, when the people are supposed to be their ministry.
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