Moderation: Striking the Right Balance

We live in a world given to extremes. Turn on the evening news or peruse any internet news site and a common theme quickly becomes apparent: unbalanced behavior. People, both young and old, are succumbing to the pitfalls of this dangerous trap. Some of these activities are tragic and sad—others strange and absurd.

Eating: In 2018, a man ate 74 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes during a hot-dog eating contest.

TV Watching: Sixty-one percent of TV streamers regularly engage in binge watching, Reader’s Digest reported on a survey conducted on behalf of Netflix. The survey defined a binge as viewing between two to six episodes of a show in one sitting.

Addictions: The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reported that 21.5 million American adults (ages 12 and older) battled a substance use disorder in 2014.

Work: Several studies show that workaholism has been associated with a wide range of health problems such as insomnia, anxiety and heart disease. A 2001 study published in the American Journal of Family Therapy found that working too much negatively impacted employees’ marriages (Forbes).

There are countless other examples in which people “go off the deep end” regarding their behavior: alcohol, sugar, legal and illegal drugs and medications, hobbies—the list could go on forever.

Brethren in the Church are told by God to “come out from among them, and be you separate” (II Cor. 6:17), meaning we should avoid worldliness. Yet, as with any societal trend, unbalanced living can creep into our lives if we are not careful and ever watchful.

God even commands: “Let your moderation be known to all men” (Phil. 4:5). While everyone else gravitates toward extremes, we must be different.

Christians should daily strive to lead balanced lives. This can mean lessening the indulging of certain activities and even abstaining from others. To be moderate in all things, we must understand why God desires for us to be balanced.

Defining Moderation

Moderation in Philippians 4:5 means “appropriate” and “mild.” Elsewhere in the King James Version, the word is translated “patient” and “gentle.” None of these words are extreme. It pictures a person who exhibits a balanced way of life.

In I Corinthians 13 (known as the love chapter), one of the ways love is defined is it “does not behave itself unseemly” (vs. 5). Unseemly is behavior that is inappropriate, odd or unbalanced. People tend to stay away from others who exhibit behavior that is extreme. It can be a real turn off!

Chapter 9 of I Corinthians adds more, “Every man that strives for the mastery is temperate in all things…” (vs. 25). Strong’s concordance defines “temperate” as “to exercise self-restraint.” God commands us to be moderate and avoid extremes—in other words, be balanced.

“Strives for the mastery” is also interesting in this verse. That phrase is one Greek word meaning to struggle or contend with an adversary.

God desires us to be balanced in all things—every thought, word and action—leading to doing all things in an appropriate way, suitable for any situation, to be equipped to contend with the pulls of our adversaries, whether it is ourselves, Satan or society. Moderation is an invaluable tool that will keep us right in the middle of the road, so to speak, not allowing us to move toward extremes.

You can say being balanced is like being a tight-rope walker—not given to one side or the other. Just as a tight-rope walker can balance himself with his balancing pole to stay safely on a wire, we too need moderation to keep us from falling into the many ditches that exist in an unbalanced world.

Realize that achieving moderation is a process. Sometimes we will “lean” a little too much toward the left, sometimes the right. The key is to regularly examine the different parts of our lives to see where we are out of balance. When we see this, we should correct our actions to have a more “centered” life.

Over time, moderation will become part of who we are—part of our character.

Delivered Out

Everything about God’s Way reflects balance. We were called out of this world into this way of moderation.

The ancient Israelites provide an example of this. While enslaved in Egypt, they were forced into a most unbalanced way of life: “And the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor: and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigor” (Ex. 1:13-14).

How could this type of forced lifestyle lend itself to a balanced, fulfilling and happy life?

The children of Israel had lived in slavery for many decades and had no idea how to live in liberty. God had to provide them with a complete, new set of detailed instructions to live His Way.

These new guidelines encompassed balance—everything from what days to work on and what days to rest on, what to eat and what not to eat, guidelines of conduct, and even how to compensate losses resulting from the disobedience of that code of conduct. The Israelites had to learn when to farm the land, when to harvest and even how to leave some of the crops for the poor and strangers. They also had to learn who and who not to marry, as well as when to fight gentile nations and when to yield and let God do the fighting.

Talk about balance! Without God revealing these things, the Israelites would have been lost. In Egypt, these standards were not addressed.

When we came out of the bondage of spiritual Egypt (Rev. 11:8)—this world—we were also introduced to this balanced way of life God always intended for mankind.

God chose Israel to be His model nation, to introduce to the world His ways and the blessings associated with them. Simply put, it is a balanced approach to living.

Yet knowledge of God’s Law is not enough to keep us from ditches. There is more action required.

Called Into Liberty

Notice that when God delivered His balanced way to Moses to pass along to the Israelites, it did not take them long to become imbalanced and abuse the perfect set of guidelines. Predictably, human nature is not content with a moderate lifestyle because it seems restrictive. So they headed off in opposite directions. These people did not want guidelines and boundaries. The story of the golden calf is a perfect example (Ex. 32).

The opposite of moderation is immoderation. This always leads to permissiveness, which is a gateway to licentiousness, laxity, disorder and ultimately lawlessness. An unbalanced approach is dangerous because it always leads to sin—the breaking of God’s laws. Negative consequences flow from this, including unhappiness, sickness and, ultimately, death.

True liberty is something we have been given through our covenant with God. “For brethren, you have been called into liberty…” (Gal. 5:13). Liberty is freedom. We must be careful, however, to fulfill what comes with liberty—the obligation to use moderation.

As an example, think of something as common as food. What a wonderful, necessary blessing it is when consumed in moderation—and what a terrible curse when used in extreme measures (obesity if overindulging or malnourishment if under-indulging).

When we find extremes in our lives, we should search the pages of Scripture to find principles to help us get back on track.

Two Ditches

For Christians, there are two major spiritual ditches we can fall into. The first is licentiousness—being too loose with what is acceptable. Being overly liberal on spiritual matters will always tend toward more liberality and sin.

Modern society exemplifies this. Many things that were forbidden or taboo a century ago are now commonplace—or even applauded! Think homosexuality, abortion, fornication and the like.

Similarly, over time, we can get used to cutting corners: being a little loose with how we keep the Sabbath, only praying to God when there is an emergency, as well as skipping Church socials and missing out on Christian fellowship.

Yet the other ditch can be even more deceptive: self-righteousness. This is a towering spiritual danger. It can seem like we are doing right, when we are doing the exact opposite.

Ecclesiastes 7:16 states, “Be not righteous over much; neither make yourself over wise: why should you destroy yourself?”

Obviously, we are called to lead righteous lives. This verse means we should not be overly righteous—that we should not take God’s commands to unbalanced extremes.

One example would be spending an inordinate amount of time studying the Bible—to the point that we have no time for family and friends. This can make a person feel “holy,” but it is just deception. If you spend all your time reading God’s Word, you will never have time to apply it in your life.

We can also become unbalanced in serving. There is a time to serve, and there is a time not to serve. Study the example of Martha (Luke 10:38-42) and how she was unable to discern when to stop serving when Jesus Christ was present.

Serving feels good—it is supposed to!—yet we must make sure we are not doing it too much to the point we burn out physically or spiritually. We must also be careful of the self-righteous attitude of serving in order to be seen by others.

God commands us to “watch” world events (Mark 13:37). Yet if this activity crowds out prayer, study or our other basic responsibilities, we must reassess our priorities.

By performing all these profitable and necessary activities—but in an unbalanced way—we can tend to see ourselves as overly righteous since those around us “just don’t get it”—a dangerous attitude to develop. A balanced amount of time spent with each area is critical to avoid the self-righteousness trap.

We understand the dangers of self-righteousness from the story of Job. He had a wrong image of himself, which led to having to suffer through a sore trial. He became unbalanced in the things he did and eventually developed an elevated view of himself (read the entire chapter of Job 29). God knows that human beings—even with His Spirit—can become unbalanced doing the very things they have been instructed to do, which can lead to the poison of self-righteousness, hence the book of Job.

Oh, what a tightrope we walk trying to be balanced in all things! Incorporating balanced living in our everyday life can be incredibly challenging—but not impossible.

We must actively examine every area of our lives (health, job, marriage, child-rearing, relationships, hobbies, food, clothing, appearance, finances and especially spiritual areas). All these actions require time and effort to strike a healthy balance.

Proverbs 25 also reinforces the point that you can have too much of a good thing: “Have you found honey? Eat so much as is sufficient for you, lest you be filled therewith, and vomit it” (vs. 16).

Anything can be taken to extremes. Food and alcohol are good examples. Both of these things were created by God to bring health and more fulfilling lives—yet consuming too much will lead to health problems, spiritual problems, and untimely death.

Unsound to Sound

How can we see the places where we are unbalanced? What steps can we take to build the spiritual habit of moderation?

First, keep the past in the past. Note I Peter 4: “For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries” (vs. 3).

The Revised Standard Version renders the first part of the verse this way: “Let the time that is past suffice for doing what” the world does. Now, we are called to moderation—and we will stick out.

Verse 4 states: “Wherein they think it strange that you run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you.”

We swim against the stream. It is difficult, but God gives us a powerful gift to allow for balanced thinking: “For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (II Tim. 1:7).

God’s Holy Spirit can help us be more disciplined in our thoughts and increase our self-control.

When you pray daily for more of God’s Spirit, be specific. Ask Him to guide you to be more sound in your thinking—that you will make good, balanced decisions.

Also realize that just because something is fine to do under God’s Law does not mean it is necessarily good for everyone to do.

The apostle Paul stated: “All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient [beneficial]: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any” (I Cor. 6:12).

Clearly, Paul did not say that God’s Law is done away. As he said many times, God forbid! Rather, he meant that there were certain things he did not do because they were not beneficial to him. This could be because they interfered with his responsibilities—but he may also have had to avoid them because he knew they could open up an area of weakness.

If you know you have a weakness, it can be best to avoid it altogether or risk being “brought under its power.” Be honest with yourself. If something you are doing is causing you to sin—cut it out!

Safeguard Your Life

Living a balanced life is as hard as learning to walk a tightrope. It takes time, patience and practice. If we can learn balanced living, however, the rewards are immeasurable.

Proper thought and the ability to make wise judgments in everything we do is what God seeks. We are leaders in training (Rev. 1:6). Being able to lead others requires balance and thinking through every action, understanding that moderate words and deeds will always affect others in the most positive way.

God gave us a perfect example of balanced living. Ephesians 5:1 commands us to be “followers of God.” “Followers” can be defined as “imitators.”

We need to imitate Jesus Christ. He was the most balanced person to ever walk the Earth. He knew when to be around people and when He needed to depart—sometimes with His disciples and sometimes by Himself. He knew when to be serious and when to use humor. He knew when to associate with the self-righteous Pharisees and when to spend time with the “sinners and publicans”—the common folk. He knew when to answer an accusation and when to stay silent.

Jesus was keenly aware of how to act on the Sabbath day versus falling into the Pharisees’ endless list of dos and don’ts. His life was, and remains, the perfect case study in absolute balance and moderation.

Take the time to study His words and examples in all four gospel accounts. The key for Him in being balanced was a combination of knowing God’s ways, having God’s Spirit and the overwhelming desire to serve others.

Living in balance requires us to constantly think of others, just as a righteous leader would.

With the return of Christ drawing closer by the day, we must continue to be faithful, balanced stewards of what God has given us.

If our hope is to share Christ’s throne, working and guiding others to eternal life, we must strive to be moderate in all things day in and day out. We need to consistently practice this way of life.

Time is moving too quickly and the world is unraveling by the minute. It is no time to be moving from the middle of the road to extreme thoughts and actions. Ditches will destroy us. Commit to live a balanced life and do it now, because, as the rest of the command to be moderate in all things in Philippians 4:5 says, “the Lord is at hand”!