Now as to the quiz, do the spirits that tempt you lead to “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”? If you can answer yes, your spirits have passed Paul’s test in Galatians (5:22) for good spirits proved by their fruits. The creative venture for your generation is to determine what love means for a nation what joy is for our civilization: what the shape of peace is among factions of ancient animosity; how patience is found for the slow processes of justice; what constitutes kindness in helping the weak, poor, and oppressed; how government can be generous without patronizing; how people can be faithful to their traditions while responsive to changes; how gentleness orders might to combat wrong; and how nations, civilizations, societies, governments, armies, peoples and factions as well as yourselves individually can exercise self-control in the face of enormous insecurity and competition.
The study of God and ultimate things might not be to vour special taste, but it is crucial for your generation’s theological task. The practice of some religious path in order to gain spiritual depth might not appeal to you now, but it is necessary for the theological task of your generation. Without knowledge and depth I fear you will become intoxicated by the wrong spirits. So many of us are tipsy and only babble.
In the long run there are no more important questions for your generation than, Which is the true God? and What spirits are the divine ones? The importance of the questions is not for your personal piety, although that too is important in its way. The importance is for your generation’s calling in public life. The new cultural beginnings we inevitably will be enacting, consciously or unwittingly, need to discern divine winds of creative origins and prophetic morality. The other spirits are more tempting but toxic. So may God’s Spirit rush upon you like a mighty wind and dance with flaming tongues of light and power on your heads.
God bless you all. Amen.
This is an excerpt from the book The God Who Beckons by Robert Cummings Neville. If you would like to buy this book please click here.