The following is by a friend of mine who teaches, among other things, preaching at the Baptist College of Florida.  This is an example of what is called inductive preaching.  I think it has a great insight into the text

ACTS 27

This story of Paul’s shipwreck on the way to Rome is one of my favorite stories in the New Testament.  It is a favorite of mine because, like most favorite stories do, it leaves us with more of a picture than a plot.  Great stories paint great images for us to look at and think about and learn from.

And you might not immediately see the picture when you first read this story.  On the surface, this chapter seems to be simply an overly-detailed description of a sea voyage “gone bad.”  And knowing that this is the Book of Acts we are reading, you might even wonder why Luke would devote a whole chapter to this single event in the life of Paul.

Shipwrecks were actually commonplace in the first century.  When Paul wrote the Book of II Corinthians, he said he had already been in three shipwrecks!  So it hardly seems right to take up a whole chapter in the story of the early church (only 28 chapters long) with just this one story.

And Luke gives every single detail of the trip.  He tells where they left from, and when.  He tells which way the wind was blowing.  He talks about the time of year.  In v28, he tells how deep the water was.  And in v37 he makes sure we know exactly how many people were on board.

I think these all details were written to get us thinking about the rest of the details that surround this story.  If we can put ourselves into the story with these details, then maybe we can also understand the tremendous pressures that weighed on Paul as he took this journey to Rome to stand trial.

Here was a man who had no real home.  Since the day Jesus had spoken to him on the Damascus Road, he had given everything to the cause of the Gospel!  He traveled from place to place, telling people about Christ.

He worked hard to start churches in places where there were no churches, and now his reward is to be arrested…to be arrested and sentenced to the ultimate fate.  He must appear before the highest human court in the world–the court of the emperor of Rome.  And no one will stand with him when he gets there.  He is alone.  He has given all and lost all.

And if his troubles were not enough, now the ship that is taking him to his fate is sinking in a winter storm, even after he had told the captain of the ship that it was going to happen! This is the ultimate Murphy’s Law in action!  “If you are sailing to a Roman trial and near-certain death, your ship will also sink.”

So what does Paul do?  I know what I would have done.  Griping and whining would have been the order of the day!  “I told them this was going to happen, but does anybody ever listen to me?  NOOOOOO!”

But instead of griping, whining, or general discouragement, I see the incredible picture of Paul begins to emerge in verse 33…

• after 14 days of being blown off course,
• after fourteen days of being so seasick that they could not eat,
• after 14 days of being in a storm so bad that he couldn’t sleep (v33 says this happened just before dawn, “as the day was coming on”),
• after 14 days of pure misery, the Apostle Paul kneels on a cold deck, in the pouring rain, in the blowing wind, and gives thanks over a piece of soggy bread.  “After he said this, he took some bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all.  Then he broke it and began to eat.  They were all encouraged and ate some food themselves.”

That is the image I want you to see and to keep.  And it is an amazing picture!  It is not “singing in the rain,” but “giving thanks in the rain.”  It is not just saying that everything is fine; it is knowing that things are not fine and giving thanks in faith.

Why would anyone do that?  Why would anyone give thanks for soggy bread in the middle of a storm?  Why would anyone give thanks when the situation seems hopeless?  The only answer is that Paul knew that things would only be hopeless if they DID NOT give thanks.

That really was Paul’s philosophy.  That really was what Paul believed:

• You live by giving thanks.  You stay strong by giving thanks.
• You survive by giving thanks.

It all explains the blanket statements that Paul made in the rest of the New Testament:

• In Eph 5:4, Paul tells the Christians to give up their old ways of foolishness and coarse jesting and put, of all things, thanksgiving in its place.
• In Eph 5:20, Paul says to give thanks at all times for all things.
• In Col 2:7, Paul says to overflow with thanksgiving.
• In I Thess 5:18, Paul writes those words that some of you have even memorized…”in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

These are all “BLANKET” STATEMENTS.  NONE of these verses ask what the circumstances are, and they should not.  That is the whole point:

• Giving thanks lives outside of circumstances.
• Giving thanks is what delivers us from being prisoners to circumstances.

That is why we are drug through this story detail by detail: because we are supposed to see Paul kneeling on the deck of a tossing ship and realize that thanksgiving is also our strength, our deliverance, from the storms, the discouragements of life.  Thanksgiving is our spiritual food.

Leadership Journal told the story of a woman who bought a parrot to keep her company, but she could not get the parrot to talk.  She returned the bird to the pet store and complained, “This bird doesn’t talk.”  The owner asked if the parrot had a mirror in its cage…”Parrots love mirrors, they can seem themselves and start a conversation with themselves.”  So the woman bought a mirror.

The next day she was back and complained that the parrot would still not talk.  The owner asked her if the parrot had a ladder in its cage.  “Parrots love ladders, and a happy parrot is a talking parrot.”  So the woman bought a ladder.

But the next day she was back again.  This time the owner asked if the parrot had a swing in his cage.  “Parrots love to swing.  Once he starts swinging, he’ll talk up a storm.”  So woman bought a swing.

She was back on the fourth day, but this time she came with sad news.  She told the owner, “my parrot died.”  The store owner was shocked and said, “Oh, I am sorry…did he ever talk before he died?”  “Yes,” the woman said, “just before he died, he looked up at me and said–’don’t they sell any food at that pet store?’”

The act of giving thanks is our spiritual food.  It takes us through the unbearable.  It allows us to bow before God in the worst of circumstances and come away with encouragement and confidence that God is with us and knows all about our situation.  We were never meant to live without gratitude.

Several years ago, a fine man named Lamar Breland died.  You don’t know his name, but I wanted to tell you about him.  He is one of those unsung church heroes.  He was one of our deacons, and a wonderful man.   He loved to fish.  He loved to tell stories.  You knew it was going to be a classic Lamar Breland story when he would say, “now here’s a sho-nuff true story!”  With Lamar, they were all “sho-nuff” true stories.  He loved to see friends and family.  He just loved to see folks.

But at the end of his life, he went through the mill.  It started with pneumonia.  And then for some reason, he got an awful case of TMJ.  Every time I saw him, he was just in agony.  And the pain from that would aggravate his heart problems.  And then finally, the cancer came.

One day at his house, after the doctors had told Lamar there was nothing else they could do, Lamar was sitting in his chair and he looked at me and said, “You know Ed, God has given me a wonderful life.”

And for just a moment, I could have sworn that I saw a man on a ship, kneeling in the rain, thanking God for soggy bread.  And it made me wonder if I had really yet tapped into the power God has placed in the simple act of giving thanks.

The following are quotations on the meaning of Revival  from Iain H Murray, Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism 1750-1858

There are eras, said (Samuel) Davies, when only a large communication or outpouring of the Spirit can produce a public general reformation. Thus, preaching on “The Happy Effect of the Pouring Out of the Spirit” from Isaiah 32:13-19, he argued that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the great and only remedy for a ruined country– the only effectual preventative of national calamities and desolation and the only sure cause of a lasting and well-established peace. (p 21)

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In speaking of the meaning of revival it is also essential to note that what Davies and his brethren believed about revival was not something separate from, or additional to, their main beliefs; it was rather a necessary consequence.  Such is a man’s state in sin that he cannot be saved without the immediate results from it, the gifts of God.  Therefore, wherever conversions are multiplied, the cause is to be found not in men, nor in favorable conditions, but in the abundance of influences of th Spirit of God that alone make the testimony of the Church effective. No other explanation of revival is in harmony with the truths that are “the essence of the Christian scheme– the utter depravity of man, the sovereignly-free grace of Jehovah, the divinity of Christ, the atonement in his blood, regeneration, and sanctification by the Holy Spirit.

This school of preachers held that the Holy Spirit has appointed means to be used for the advancement of the gospel,  pre-eminently the teaching of the Word of God accompanied by earnest prayer.  Yet no human endeavors can ensure or guarantee results.  There is a sovereignty in all God’s actions.  He has never promised to bless in proportion to the activity of his people.  Revivals are not brought about by the fulfillment of “conditions” any more than the conversion of a single individual is secured by any series of human actions.  The special “seasons of mercy”  are determined in heaven.  Thus for a modern biographer of Davies to say what Blair “began a revival of religion in 1740″ is to assert the opposite of what they believed.  For the same reason it would have been obnoxious to these preachers to hear themselves described as “revivalists” . . .(p 22)

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. . . It can be further noted that what happens in revivals is not to be seen as something miraculously different from the regular experience of the church.  The difference lies in degree, not in kind.  In an “outpouring of the Spirit” spiritual influence is more widespread, convictions are deeper, and feelings more intense, but all this is only a heightening of normal Christianity.  True revivals are “extraordinary,” yet what is experienced at such times is not different in essence from the spiritual experience that belongs to Christians at other times.  It is the larger “earnest” of the same Spirit who abides with all who believe.

Thus Davies and his brethren repudiated the idea that revivals restore miraculous gifts to the churches.  They regarded revivals as more wonderful than that: The Spirit magnifies Christ, and the more abundantly his influence is possessed by the believers the more they will live for his praise.  When we meet with lives such as those of Davies, Whitefield (he had such a sense of the incomparable excellence of the person of Christ), Aaron Burr, Sr (a perpetual holocaust [a sacrifice consumed by fire] of adoration and praise, and many others in the revival period, we are tempted to suppose that theirs was a different Christianity.  It was not so but rather, as Thomas Murphy wrote, it was “the baptism of the Holy Ghost which caused the infant Church [in America] to become animated by the most fervent piety.”  The same writer said of these preachers: “they believed in refreshings from on high, felt some of them in their own souls, and were ready for still more . . . these bright and cultured souls were stirred to their very depths, and blessings untold were involved therein.  They awoke to a life not new in kind, but new in degree, and in all truth and soberness a new prospect opened before our Church and country.”

If revival is a larger giving to the church of grace already possessed– a heightening of the normal– then it follows that the evidences by which revivals are to be judged are the same as those which form the permanent evidences of real Christianity.  Foremost in the New Testament list is the evidence of love to God and men.  At all times to all true believers Christ “is precious.”   Preaching on those words, Davies said:

Because he loves him he longs for the full enjoyment of him . . . Because Christ is precious to him, his interests are so too, and he longs to see his kingdom flourish, and all men fired with his love.  Because he loves him, he loves his ordinances; loves to hear, because it is the word of Jesus; loves to pray, because it is maintaining intercourse with Jesus; loves to sit at his table, because it is a memorial of Jesus; and loves his people because they love Jesus.”

For revivals to be judged to be true we are to look for no greater proof than the increase of this same grace.  Love is not uniform in its strength but it knows many degrees.  Although it is an “active principle” in all Christians, love can also blaze and burn.  Men filled with the Spirit are filled with love (Eph. 3:16-19) and “the sacred fire of love” (to use Davies’ words) will affect al that they do.  They cannot be to others than fervent in spirit as well as dissatisfied with their own coldness. (p 23-24)

In the last few years I have become burdened with the need for personal spiritual awakening.  In discussions with our local pastors, I have discovered that this is a growing burden among my pastor friends.  The desire is not only for personal awakening but for our churches, especially for our churches.  But it also seems that our denominations all need to experience a Great Awakening.

Of course, I am most familiar with Southern Baptist Churches.  While we southern Baptists have been known for our growth and evangelism, some kind of death pall has come over us.  I was recently in a denominational meeting and the topic of the day was the demise of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).  In the last few years the International Missions Board of the SBC has suffered various doctoral issues.  But the biggest problem has been the North American Missions Board.  Money is down. Our collective number of baptisms are down. People have had to be laid off, missionary service has had to be postponed due to the lack of money. The seminaries have had to cut salaries and law off workers.  While the SBC is the largest protestant denomination in the United States, we are now easily ignored.  In fact, many Christian journals have set up a death watch to see when we will keel over.

The question is how can we fix it.  I do not think it can be fixed in the traditional sense.  No commission or study is going to give us a solution.   While my analysis may be a bit amateurish, I think we can clearly see the problem if we want and learn about a possible solution.

Baptists use to be plain people, ordinary working men and women.  We were far from the seats of power.  It would be true that in county seat churches, doctors, lawyers and local politicians would be members of local Baptist churches. Yet Baptists were largely engaged with local community ministry and foreign missions.

In the twentieth  century Southern Baptist had grown enough that leaders wanted to be part of the larger social and even political power group that wields influence in our country. I suppose that there is nothing wrong with this and may have even appeared as an act of providence.  But in serving God we are connected to the only seat of power needed to influence a nation.  Seeking to be power players can be a dangerous thing in that it causes us to forget utter reliance on God.  The result is that Southern Baptists became main street.  We were no longer just plain old people.  Now we have presidents who were Southern Baptists.  Southern Baptist pastors and leaders became nationally known figures.  We were caught up in our size, in the amount of money raised collectively for ministry, and most of all, public fame brought by being main street and being powerfully connected.  We were part of the rising new south and we had a big role to play.  I am convinced that our social success contributed to our decline.

A second factor can be found in our tendency to want to program everything.  If we have a problem, a need, or a want, someone will come up with a program to fix it.  Most of the programs came from our Sunday School Board, as it was called, now Lifeway.  Many came from the Home Missions Board, now NAMB. We borrowed from the business community our sense of organization and record keeping.  And these practices served us well.  It allowed to have a standard Sunday School and Discipleship program thus fulfilling the biblical mandate to teach Scripture, to teach discipleship including churchmanship, doctrine and history, to encourage fellowship and to do evangelism through these two programs.  These two programs gave us a uniformity as a denomination that one would not normally find in a non connectional church.

Being successful at Sunday School, we concluded that we needed a program for everything.  Evangelism, Stewardship, building and equipment, almost anything you could imagine.  Soon churches were trying to make one-size-fits-all programs work in their churches even thought most programs were written for larger churches.  The program approach stifled local creativity among church members and even encouraged them to be observers and not participants.

Often these programs were unitarian without thought given to doctrine. This is the third and perhaps most important factor.   We became impressed by size and numbers while we neglected based doctrine.  I am convinced that our efforts at evangelism, no matter how noble, resulted in churches being full of lost people who made emotional “decisions” instead of coming to faith in the incomparable Christ.  It became a routine matter for denominational leaders to claim that the purpose of the church is evangelism.  I heard this just this week.  Not only is it the only purpose of the church but we pastors need to repent if we disagreed with the speaker.  It is a kind of arrogance that says I know better because I am a denominational worker and you are a mere pastor.  The fact is, the purpose of the church is to glorify God and bring him honor by our holy living. But above all, the church brings honor and glory to God by faithfully worshiping him.   The pastor shepherds the flock.  Shepherding includes teaching them the things of God, helping the member to become mature believers. Thus, discipleship and fellowship are integral elements in the purpose of the Church.  When these things are done, the church will be self replicating, evangelism will be normal and natural.  But, no, we tend to listen to our “leaders” who know better.

Our literature has been so dumb-down that very little substance is found in it.  We have been too busy trying to accommodate the world that we have stopped teaching doctrine.  Baptist suffer from a lack of understanding of our basic doctrines.  No one really understands the sovereignty of God and his right to order the lives of his people according to his purposes.  We “accommodate” God by coming to church when it suits us and, for the most part, not paying attention to the things of God during the week. This latter behavior is being reinforced in local churches, often because they are following the latest trend and fad expressed by denominational leaders.

The same can be said for the doctrine of the church, the person of Christ, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and the doctrine of the atonement. Feelings have become the substitute for sound doctrine.  We lose members to cults, and defective churches because we have settled for the lowest common denominator instead of seeking to teach doctrine that leads to a mature Christian.

Finally, this needs to be said. We fought over various definitions of orthodoxy for 25 years and it left us weak and feeble in our practice of the faith.  I am not commenting on the necessity of that fight but the results.  The main argument was that there were many in the denomination who did not believe that the Bible was the inerrant, infallible Word of God.  The battle was won but if you survey the preaching and teaching done by many Southern Baptist pastors you would never know it.  Much of the preaching is topical.  The topics are often about finances, marriage and sex.  The drama of preaching has become more important than the words preached.  It is not unusual to see a stage with cars, motorcycles, beds, and others displays used to promote the subject of the sermon.  It is all entertaining and many men have become famous preachers for these kinds of tactics.  But the Word is not being preached, the kingdom of God is not being built.  No doubt the subjects of modern preaching are important, but we are called to proclaim Scripture not topics.  Expositional preaching is almost gone from many pulpits (if they have a pulpit) because the pastor is trying to imitate his favorite popular preacher.

Since the troubles we experienced in the Southern Baptist Convention, no national leader has risen up to lead us back to the important things.  Institutionalism is stronger than ever even though all the major Southern Baptist institutions are in trouble.  What has been forgotten is that it is all about the local church, not the denomination.  Ultimately the denomination is nothing.  When we get to heaven all there is going to be, is the local church, the Bride of Christ.   The principle was given by Christ himself, “for whoever wishes to save his life will lose it.”  Institutions take on a life of their own and they often forget why they exist.  Instead, they become concerned for their self existence, protecting jobs without regard to their original purpose.  If we want to save the institutions of the Convention, then they will have to give themselves away so to speak, and become servants to the local churches.

It is the reason that these things happened that is the most disturbing.  It happened, not because of the leadership of the Convention, but because of the wants and compromises of the local churches and the pastors who lead them.  We cannot put the blame on others. If the convention is in decline, it is because the churches are in decline.  That decline is more than numbers, it has to do with the spiritual vitality of the local churches.  We got from our denomination what we demanded.

I think the answer does not lie in the SBC or it’s leadership. No Great Commission study can solve our problems. It is evident that we need a Great Awakening on a national scale.  The great need for an awakening becomes even larger when we view the condition of the SBC in light of the health of local churches.  We must get back to our relationship with God that caused our existence in the first place.  No Great Awakening ever began on a denominational level.  No denominational leader has been at the heart of one.  Great Awakenings begin in churches and with small groups of people who are so disgusted with themselves that they turn to God to restore them.   Most likely if there is ever a Great Awakening in SBC life, it will begin in some small church or group of churches. If God allows an awakening to come, he will sovereignly move his church and if he allows, it will spread until it becomes a raging fire.  It will not be something that any man, any institution can claim to be the leader of or heralded as the one who started it.  Great Awakenings are always a sovereign work of God.  No doubt, God wants us to be right with him.  But it must begin at the top, which is the local church.

Recently a friend sent me this quote from Joe McKeever, “Something that has eluded religious historians and pastors for decades: ‘Why churches do not have revival.’ Insufficient prayer? Lack of godliness? Those are important, but are the symptoms, not the reason. The real reason for no revival is: we don’t want one. Revivals mess with your mind, rearrange your priorities, upset your lives. We prefer to be left alone. Agree?”  And yes, I agree.  But when our situation becomes so grim, when there is little life left in the church, we can no longer sit back and watch it all die.  We are compelled to fall before God and seek His life-giving Spirit for a dose of real revival.

It is my greatest desire to see the fires of a Great Awakening blow its way among our churches and revive our Convention and our state conventions.  I pray that before I die I will see such a movement.  I hope that we all find ourselves before God confessing our sin, begging God for his forgiveness and seeing the revival fires light up in the hearts of believers everywhere.  May God grant it to us.

I am a creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God and returning to God, just hovering over the great gulf, till, a few moments hence, I am no more seen: I drop into an unchangeable eternity. I want to know one thing–the way to heaven, how to land safe on that happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach me the way. For this very end he came from heaven. He has written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it. Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri (“a man of one book”). Here then I am, far from the busy ways of men. I sit down alone. Only God is here. In his presence I open, I read his book–for this end, to find the way to heaven. (John Wesley, as quoted by James Montgomery Boice, Romans, Vol. 1, p 34)

Philippians 1:1-11

James Houston says that there are at least 6 aspects to the nature of Christian Spirituality.

1. It is not ascetic. In other words, you do not have to become a hermit or a monk and withdraw from the world to be close to God. Our spirituality must take place in the real world that we live in. That means there are no good excuses for not having a close relationship to God.

2. The biblical revelation of God as personal leaves no place for the deductions of human wisdom. In other words, we must get our information from the Bible. We cannot use our wisdom and intuition as a source

The Bible teaches that God is personal and that He enters into a relationship with us. He initiates that relationship and He maintains it. It becomes our privilege to live in a person to person relationship with God. Such relationships can be found in the Old Testament as well as the New. And it are not based on secret knowledge but upon the common knowledge we all find in the Bible.

3. Christian spirituality is Christocentric, that is, Christ centered. Paul describes our Christian life as a life in Christ. We are in Christ and we are being conformed to him, putting on the mind of Christ, knowing Him and being known by Him.

4. Christianity Spirituality is life in the Trinity. The Christian lives as a son or daughter of God. We know God as Father. We realize our sonship or daughership in Jesus by his saving work of redemption and the forgiveness of sin. We have this relationship actualized by the gift of the Holy Spirit who enables the believer to cry Abba Father (Romans 8:15). For us, worship means to be in fellowship with the Father in the Son through the Holy Spirit.

5. Christian spirituality is the outworking of the grace of God in the soul of man. It begins with our conversion and extends until that day we go to be with Him. The goal of spirituality is our maturity in Christ.

6. Christian spirituality produces fellowship and communion of the saints and deepens our walk with each other. The reality of our spirituality is tested by our public worship. Just as our relationship to God is deepened, so is our relationship to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. (Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, sv. “Spirituality”, J. Houston, pp. 1046-1047)

Christian spirituality will produce people with a servant’s heart and godly living. There is the inward relation of man to God and the outward relationship of man to man. Spirituality, instead of producing sublime mystics who seem to float above the rest of us, produces mature people with common sense and great love and action toward their fellow man.

Philippians has more deep, positive emotion than any of Paul’s other writings. He expresses great joy in knowing his readers and in knowing his sufferings while he is in prison. Paul gives thanks for the church at Philippi and rejoices in knowing them and knowing that they too share in his suffering. Paul’s spirituality turns suffering into something positive. They understand his suffering. And they share and participate with him in the Gospel with integrity and with honor and with joy.

It is not often that Paul expresses the way he feels about something. But, he expresses his joy in regard to them because he has them in his heart. What a deep, joyful expression this is! They are like treasure hidden in his heart and he remembers them constantly. They, like Paul, have given themselves to the defense and confirmation of the Gospel. They support him both financially and spiritually. They are fellow partakers of the grace of God! The result is that he longs to be with them with the deep affection of Christ Jesus. This word for “affection” is the word for bowels or inward parts. It expresses the deepest, most meaningful emotions of the human soul.

Paul prays for them and has confidence in them that they will remain blameless before Christ and that they will produce righteous fruit. How can he have this kind of confidence in mere men and women? The answer is found in verse 6, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” He is confident because it is the work of Christ. Jesus is the source of our Christian life. He is the source of our spirituality. Not only did He call us to Himself, he sustains us and feeds us and cultivate us so that He may lead us to perfection.

Paul prays that their love will increase in real knowledge and discernment. He does not ask that love by itself be increased. But, that love and knowledge grow together. Love and knowledge balance each other. If we love God will want to know more about him. But if we know more, we will also be able to discern that which is from God and that was is not. I was in a meeting this week and the subject turned briefly to responding to the guys with signs on the interstate. I was asked do I give to them. I said no, those guys are professional beggars and giving to them only enables them to live like that. They don’t want to work they want you money. I hope that is love accompanied by discernment. Sometimes loves says no.

The goal of this love that abounds in knowledge and discernment is so that we may approve of that which is excellent. There is a hierarchy of information here. Love that grows in knowledge and discernment leads to our ability to approve, that is to seek and live and promote what is excellent. Love causes us to do what we do with excellence. Mediocrity should not be a part of the Christian lifestyle. We offer our best to God and to each other.

But, even living a life of excellence has a purpose. We seek a life of excellence so that we may be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ. Each day for the Christian, should be one of joyful excellence as he or she moves toward that day when Christ returns. It is not a threat that you better get going. It is a reminder that our pursuit of Christ is a joyful act. Like children on the way to see their favorite movie, they may dress and talk like their favorite character. We move toward heaven in love that is abounding, in knowledge and discernment. We seek to live in excellence with joy imitating our Lord, thinking like him, putting on the mind of Christ, his attitudes, his love, his desires as we journey with anticipation of seeing him face to face.

So, we are never finished. We are a work in progress. God is not through with any of us yet. We may notice God building and renovating, tearing away old rot and replacing with the what is mature and right before God.

Paul expresses a deep spirituality that draws us in and causes us to walk in excellence because we are conscience that we are God’s children we are a people who strive after Christlikeness, knowing all the while that it is God who is at work in us and will do so until the very end.