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Excess

I wrote this in response to an article online. I notice now that the response may be too formulaic, but I thought I would share it.

[Insert author here], thank you for your thoughts. I would like to address an issue that can come up for new believers or for those who may misunderstand how to experience real change in their lives and add something that may help those who are struggling to be more like their Savior.

I fear that some of the vulnerable will hear from this article, taken alone, the message "Try harder, and you will become more spiritual." For those who are not given to excess, diving deeply into God's word and into other spiritual practices can be sound advice, but those for whom excess is their most conscious failing may fall prey to substituting one form of excess with another. I believe that pursuing the pleasure of spirituality (what I see as practicing the spiritual disciplines in order to feel or appear spiritual) can be just as dangerous, and spirituality just as much an idol, as pursuing pleasure in other forms. We can spend hours poring over scripture, thinking we are searching for God, when in fact we are shoring up our own feelings of righteousness.

I am convinced that true change comes in coupling the spiritual disciplines--in the context of other believers--with obedience: James 2:26 says, "As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead." When we search for God through the disciplines (prayer, Scripture, confession, fellowship, and more) and also begin to obey him by following his commands, we begin to see God's hand more visibly in our lives, and he becomes personal to us. I believe it is then that we find our desire for other things begin to shift to a desire for God through holiness.

Thank you for considering my words, and for your effort to help those who have been enslaved to excess, people like me.

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