Tools for Monday: The Virtuous Life
We’ve recently discussed spiritual disciplines in our Monday blog articles. One of the most practical of these disciplines is commonly referred to as “practicing the virtuous life.” This spiritual discipline involves boots on the ground theology. In other words, we can have much spiritual head knowledge. But if we don’t put such knowledge into practice, then what good is the knowledge in the first place? A good theology is one that is lived out in daily life.
How then do we begin to live a virtuous life? Let’s start with some things we know about the nature of God and then make those things actionable. For instance, we know that our God is certainly active. God is purposefully present and sovereign (in charge) in our daily lives. Accordingly, our active God calls us to action. But this is not just any action. We are not to do good things in our life for the Lord merely to keep our minds and bodies active for cursory religious reasons. Throughout the whole of the Bible, our active and present God commands his people to be holy since God himself is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16). Consequently, since we know that God deserves no less than our virtuous response of worship in the whole of everyday life, we therefore reject sin in consistent repentance and place our faith in Jesus to empower us by his Spirit for holy living.
In fact, God has not left us clueless as to the ways of living a virtuous life. God provided the way to holiness. Holiness is not based on human merit, or our piling up good works to be deemed “good enough” for God. The ministry of Jesus on the cross and his subsequent defeat of death in the resurrection cleared the path for our forgiveness and spiritual rebirth, thereby freeing us to walk as Jesus walked. The revelation of God through the Lord Jesus Christ brings all of life into perspective and puts the puzzle pieces in place for both why and how we ought to live, move, and have our being.
In a nutshell, we are saying that because God is holy, then we ought to be holy! And while we cannot be holy and virtuous through our own efforts, we can die to ourselves, and Christ will live in and through us by his Spirit.
But what does the virtuous life truly look like in the ups and downs of daily living? Let’s talk more about it in our next article.