THE CHRISTIAN, A NEW CREATURE

II Cor. 5:17 ... "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come."

      In Rom. 3:1 Paul asks, "What advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision?" In the next verse he answers, "Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God." There were great blessings involved in being a Jew. They were the people God chose to be His own possession; through them God made preparations to send the world a Redeemer; and for centuries God had revealed His will through them by inspired oracles. Paul's question may be taken and pointed toward another object more relevant to our modern situation: "What advantage has the Christian? Or what is the benefit of baptism?" We do not find the question phrased in these words anywhere in the New Testament. But if it were, there is little doubt the statement we find in II Cor. 5:17 would be its answer.

      To be in Christ is a Biblical phrase that means to be a Christian. Sometimes it is expressed as "in the Lord," since in New Testament vocabulary the Lord is Christ. As a person entered into a covenant with God as a Jew by circumcision, a person now becomes a Christian by being "baptized into Jesus Christ," (Rom. 6:3). With this initial act of obedience in response to faith, the advantages of being a Christian immediately begin.

      The first advantage is that the person becomes a "new creature." In Tit. 3:5 baptism is called "the washing of regeneration," that is, it is an act of spiritual cleansing by which a new creation is brought forth. If there is such a thing as a modern day miracle, it is the thing that occurs when a sinner is converted into a Christian. It was a miracle when God in the beginning created a man from earthly elements and then endowed him with a soul after God's own Image. Is it any the less a miracle when God today regenerates the sin-wasted soul of a person and brings forth a soul which is again pure and blameless? It is something only God can do, for creation requires a power that lies entirely within the province of God.

      The second advantage obtained when a person becomes a new creature in Christ, (a Christian), is that "old things (are) passed away." Gone are the wretched conditions that prevailed when sin ruled over the individual's life. These conditions are described in Ephesians 2. First, (v.3), "we all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest."  Second, (v.12), "You were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world." The former life of enslavement to lust, of enmity toward God, of alienation from divine favor, and of bleak hopelessness is gone. 

      With the dismissal of this terrible state of life comes the third advantage of being a Christian, which is expressed in the proclamation, "Behold! New things have come." As one enters into Christ, life takes on a whole new dimension.  It says in Rom. 6:4 that, as a person comes forth from baptism, he should "walk in newness of life." First, he becomes the son of a new Father, who is God, (Jno. 20:17). Before,  his father was his earthly, biological father. But now he is the son of the Creator of the universe and the omnipotent Ruler over all. Second, the Christian gains citizenship in a new kingdom, the Kingdom of God, (Col. 1:13). This is a kingdom that is eternal and will survive the destruction of the earth at the end of time. And third, the Christian receives a new hope, the hope that when this life is over and he must leave this world, he will be given eternal life in heaven, (Jno. 14:1-3).

OUTWARD DECLINE, INWARD RENEWAL

II Cor. 4:16 ... "Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day."

      The lives of the apostles and their assistants were hazardous. They were often publicly humiliated, threatened, arrested, imprisoned, beaten, stoned and expelled from cities where they were preaching. In Acts 7 Stephen was killed, and in Acts 12 James was beheaded. Beyond these external persecutions there was also the physical and mental strain that resulted from the intense labors of constant travel, of being poorly fed, clothed, and housed, and of spending long hours without rest in their daily ministries. As Christians today enjoy freedom of religion, worship in commodious buildings, and quick, easy, and comfortable mobility in fine automobiles, we have great difficulty in understanding or appreciating what these men of early Christianity had to endure. A little unexpected difficulty can easily discourage us from maintaining progress in serving Christ. For example, if the air conditioning malfunctions on a hot August Sunday, we might cut our worship service short in the morning and cancel it in the evening. Heavy rain on a Sunday nearly always diminishes the number of people who assemble for worship and Bible study. The constant and even severe opposition to the ministries of the apostles and their fellow workers offered great potential for paralyzing discouragement. This fourth chapter of II Corinthians deals with this great temptation, but throughout Paul gives reasons why in his case it did not bring him to a halt. In v.1 he reports that "since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart." 

      At this point the apostle makes an observation that has great meaning to every disciple of Jesus: "Though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day." The "outward man" is a code name that refers to one's physical body. No matter how hard we try to prevent it, as we grow older our physical body wears out, loses strength and energy, and gradually begins to malfunction in various ways. By the proper regimen of diet, rest, exercise, and temperate behavior we might delay this physical decline, but no one can prevent it. It happens to the most devout Christian as well as to the reprobate sinner. 

      But a human being is not constituted solely of a physical body. There is another part to our nature to which Paul applies another code name, the "inward man." This refers to the soul which is made in the image of God and which is eternal. It is not subject to wearing out and perishing like the body, but it can be abused, warped, and blighted by the action of sin. In Christ, however, we have the wonderful opportunity of having our souls "renewed day by day." We are informed in Eph. 3:16 that Christians are "strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man." Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is received at baptism and dwells within a Christian, (Acts 2:38), God supplies his soul with strength to prevent it from declining into weakness toward death as our bodies do. As we progress in the Christian experience, the Spirit develops "fruits" within us as we grow in "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control," (Gal. 5:22-23).

      As the body of a Christian wears out, his soul within has a reciprocal experience.  As his hair turns white, his body stoops, his eye dims and his hearing fades, his soul daily increases in spiritual strength, ability, and energy. His capacity to love grows and flourishes in deeper sincerity. The joy of  drawing closer to the Lord outweighs the sadness of losing his physical powers. He experiences more and more the "peace that passes understanding" and finds the ability to be patient in spite of every external disappointment. He is able to face each new day with more kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness and self-control. And if the Lord prolongs his life until his body is exhausted by the toil of living and the progress of disease, he is spiritually ready to leave it behind and gladly enter a new life with the Lord beyond death.

CHANGED INTO THE IMAGE OF CHRIST

II Cor. 3:18 ... "We all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit."

      When God created the universe, He made man the crown of His handiwork by endowing him with a character unique among all creatures. We are told in Gen. 1:27 that "God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him." God is a Spirit (Jno. 4:24), so when He created man "in His own image," He enshrined in man's physical body a similar spirit (or soul)." No other living creature was thus honored.  All of them received nothing more than the gift of biological life. Because every human being has within him an image of God, each person owes respect to every other person. Thus, James (3:9) argues that no one should curse another since he is "made in the likeness of God." To abuse or exploit another human is, in a significant sense, to render such ill treatment to God. Although people nevertheless offend others, none of us violates anyone more than he violates his own character. This is the point made in Rom. 3:23 when it declares that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." God's glory is planted in each of us in the soul made in His own image. When we abuse our soul with sin, we violate that indwelling glory. Sin contaminates the soul with moral filth and deforms it to the place where it loses its original resemblance to God. Then we must cry out so pitifully with Isaiah of old, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips," (Isa. 6:5).

      How fortunate we are that God does not abandon us as we continue daily the destruction of our souls with sin. The psalmist proclaims that God "redeems your life from the pit" by "pardoning all your iniquities," (Psa. 103:3-4). The way by which He renews and recreates our souls is by the work of Christ, revealed and administered to us through the New Testament, (see II Cor. 3:6). This remarkable Book is like a perfectly clear mirror that portrays the living image of God's Holy Son.  With this capacity as a mirror, it contains a power like no other book ever written. The word in the lead text above that is translated "beholding" conveys both the idea of seeing a separate object and seeing the reflection of one's own image. Any ordinary mirror will reflect one's own image, but this unique mirror also projects the perfect image of Christ's nature. Not only that, but it also has a transforming power that operates upon those who will dare let it. When anyone looks into this mirror, he sees a hideous image of a life deformed, wasted and fouled by sin. But our text declares that by "beholding ... the glory of the Lord" contained therein, he is "transformed into the same image from glory to glory."

      At first, one sees a double image, the beautiful and perfect image of Christ and the sin-warped  image of himself. But as he continues to behold (the sense of the Greek present tense) his own image, it is "changed" gradually into the glorious image of Christ.  As the power of the gospel in the New Testament works its wonderful improvements in the life of the individual, the difference between the two images is decreased.  The word translated "transformed" is one that denotes a fundamental change in one's very nature rather than a mere superficial change. In other words, the "house" of one's character is not just remodeled, it is taken apart and built anew after the blueprint of Christ's. That this is not accomplished in a day is made clear by the phrase "from glory to glory." This means  from one stage of development to another as one progresses toward the fullness of the glory of Christ. Such perfection, in fact, is never accomplished in this life.  When Christ returns, however, it will be accomplished, for we are told in I Jno. 3:2-3 that "when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is. And every one who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure."

THAT SATAN TAKE NO ADVANTAGE

 II Cor. 2:11 ... "That no advantage be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes."

      In his first extant letter to the Corinthians Paul rebuked them for proudly continuing to fellowship a man who was cohabiting with his step-mother. He ordered them to "deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus," (I Cor. 5:5). In other words, in a solemn convocation in the name of Christ they were to withdraw fellowship from this brother in the hope that it might induce him to repent and return to a life of Christian purity, (I Cor. 5:4). We learn here in this Second Epistle that, upon reading these instructions from the apostle, the Corinthians were overcome with shame and took the prescribed action against the wayward brother. The outcome was as hoped. The man repented and appealed to the church to be forgiven and then  reinstated in its fellowship.  Strangely, however, the people who had formerly protected the man in his sin were very reluctant to forgive him in his penitence. In the first ten verses of II Corinthians 2, Paul strongly urges the church to forgive the man and accept him with the fullness of Christian love. He then warns them, "That no advantage be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes."

      We must never forget that Satan lives in our midst here in this world and that he has a plan to turn every one of us away from God. How poignant is the warning in I Pet. 5:8, "Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." We should never take lightly the reality of Satan or the influence he exerts in our environment. The native Masai who roams freely and carelessly in the savannah in lion country may never return, but instead end up in the stomach of the king of the beasts. Vigilance and superior weapons are required daily to survive, for human strength is no match for that of the lion. Peter compares Satan to a hungry lion who constantly stalks humans as his prey. Martin Luther well expressed this reality in his hymn, Ein Feste Burg:  "For still our ancient foe / doth seek to work us woe. / His craft and power are great, / and armed with cruel hate, / on earth is not his equal. / Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing, / were not the right man on our side, / the Man of God's own choosing." Our defense against Satan is also vigilance and superior weapons, not those of our own design, but those supplied to us by our Lord Jesus, (Eph. 6:10-18). The one who ignores these and ventures out into life on his own will sooner or later be "devoured" by Satan.

      Paul says that we not be "ignorant of his schemes." The Scriptures warn us that Satan has developed extremely effective "schemes" (strategies) by which he can overthrow the faith and righteousness of the unwary Christian. The word translated "advantage be taken" conveys the idea of deception, which is doubtless Satan's most successful "scheme." Later in this epistle, (11:14-15), Paul declares that "Satan disguises himself as an angel of light" and that "his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness." Through his agents, people who have submitted to him and are serving him, Satan tries to persuade us to call evil good and good evil, and to put light for darkness and darkness for light, sweet for bitter and bitter for sweet, (Isa. 5:20).  At first, he induced the Corinthians to protect a man in the open commission of fornication; then Satan induced them not to forgive him when he repented. Satan always tries to lead us to do the opposite of that which God wills. We must study his "schemes" and learn to spot them clearly when they are applied. Then we must take care not to give him "advantage of us" by ignoring him, trying to beat him at his own game, or foolishly facing him without the presence of our Lord Jesus, against whom Satan cannot stand, (Mat. 4:1-11).

      

THE ROLE OF THE TRINITY IN HUMAN REDEMPTION

 II Cor. 1:21-22 ... "He who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the Spirit in our hearts as a pledge."

      In these two verses Paul refers to the Holy Trinity as God (the Father), Christ (the Son), and the Spirit (the Holy Spirit). Although he never gives a detailed theological explanation of the Trinity, Paul frequently mentions Them and indicates some of their related functions. In this epistle (13:14) he states that God loves us, that He manifests this love to us as grace through Christ, and that by the Holy Spirit  He has communion with us. In the above quoted text the apostle is content to show that the Holy Three work together in the purpose to save mankind from sin. In the original text Paul uses four participles, translated into English as verbs, to describe Their activity in the great work of human redemption.

      First, Paul states that God establishes us in Christ. The word used here was a legal term from the business profession indicating a binding guarantee of a sale. That is, it obligated the seller to sell at the agreed price and the buyer to come up with the money to purchase it. The idea is that God has bound Himself to redeem man at the cost of Jesus' blood. When anyone wishes to repent and obey the gospel, God always follows through on His commitment to redeem that soul. He never reneges, but is always ready and willing to follow through on His guarantee. It says in I Tim. 2:4 that God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." Jesus affirmed God's commitment to save the penitent when (Jno. 6:37) He declared, "All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me; and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out."

      Second, Paul says that we have been anointed by God. In the Mosaic period, when a priest or a king was commissioned to his office, he went through a ceremony of being anointed. Jesus, who was commissioned to be the eternal King and eternal High Priest, is often referred to as the Anointed. Both Messiah (Hebrew) and Christ (Greek) mean "anointed." The reference to Christians as being "anointed" is quite unusual; the only other application of this term to them in the New Testament is in I Jno. 2:20 and 27. When a person is baptized into Christ, he receives the "gift of the Holy Spirit," (Acts 2:38). This gift is his anointing to life and service in the Lord. Therefore, our being anointed is to Jesus, the Anointed One, as Christian is to Christ. God has honored us with a spiritual distinction resembling that of His Son's.

      Third, Paul declares that God has sealed us. In ancient times, and to some extent at present, seals were employed to three purposes:  to preserve, to designate ownership, and to authenticate the contents of something. Thus, a seal was put on a jar lid to preserve its quality; a seal was stamped on an item to identify who possessed it; and a seal was put on a document to signify the truth of its contents. The Holy Spirit is the Christian's seal, (Eph. 4:30), a seal which is placed upon us at baptism, (Acts 2:38). The Spirit seals us to preserve us as God's people, to proclaim we belong to God, and to authenticate us as sons of God.

      Fourth, Paul states that God gives us the Spirit as an earnest. The word thus translated was another legal term from the business community. It indicated a deposit, or first installment, in the purchase of something. We still employ the word that way when we speak of "earnest money," a payment made on property to assure we will fully complete the purchase in time. God's gift of the Spirit to dwell within us is His "earnest payment" to declare He will fully claim our souls. We are assured in Rom. 8:11 that by the Holy Spirit, who has shared our Christian lives with us, we will be raised in the resurrection. In that great act God will complete the wonderful transaction of eternally redeeming our souls.

PRESCRIPTION FOR SPIRITUAL HEALTH

 I Cor. 16:13-14 ... "Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong."

      With economy of words the apostle Paul gave the Corinthian Christians this inspired prescription for their spiritual health. With only 13 words in English, and but 7 in the original Greek, he specified four things they had to do to maintain their Christian identity. Corinth stood at the crossroads of traffic between the western and eastern sides of the Roman empire. Commerce passed through the city in constant and heavy volume, and as always so did sin of every kind. The city became so notorious  for its variety and intensity of wickedness that the phrase "to Corinthianize" was coined to describe it. It was perhaps harder to resist the demoralizing influences there than in most cities, so the church in Corinth faced greater dangers than congregations elsewhere. The sins that Paul dealt with in this epistle emphasize this. Thus, as he was about to end his message to them, he felt it necessary to urge them to accept this brief, compact, but very effective formula, one that is no less effective or applicable to us today.

      First, he told them to be on the alert.  The context indicates the reference is to the presence of temptation. One thinks immediately of Jesus' warning in Mat. 26:41, "Keep watching and praying, that you may not enter not into temptation." Vigilance often signals the presence of temptation in the way just ahead. Then it may be possible to take a detour so that it is not necessary to encounter it. If one cannot avoid the forward path, he can at least prepare himself to resist it. We are told in Pro. 22:3 that "the prudent sees the evil and hides himself; but the naive go on, and are punished for it."

     Second, Paul urged them to stand firm in the faith. It is indeed by faith that Christians are able to hold their integrity against the pressure of evil. When faith grows weak, the individual becomes like a twig at the mercy of every eddy and current in a stream. Those whose faith is weak are described in Eph. 4:14 as being "tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming."

     Third, the Corinthians were told to act like men. The Christian life is designed to bring converts from the stage of spiritual childhood to the advanced level of spiritual maturity. Earlier (13:11), Paul had told them, "When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things." There comes a time in our Christian development when childish attitudes and behavior should be a thing of the past and when mature attitudes formed through experience in the gospel cause us to "act like men."

     Fourth, Paul counseled them to be strong. This is a capacity which does not come to a disciple overnight any more than bodily strength comes to an athlete in one or two workouts. The power to resist temptation to refute false doctrine and to perform deeds of service to the glory of God comes by degrees through persistent effort. In Eph. 6:10 we are told to be "strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might." The key words here are "in the Lord" and "in His strength."Alone, we have no power to endure and progress in the Christian life, but "in the strength of His might" we have access to all we need to make steady and sure progress. Paul put it well when he said to the Philippians, "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." In his own strength he could do little, but through the power of Christ he could do "all things." And so it is with all Christians.

AFTER DEATH, WHAT THEN?

I Cor. 15:19 ... "If we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most to be pitied."

      "After death, what then?" is a question that has been asked by men since we first began to live on this planet. Various answers have been given, answers which to a large extent determine the character of the lives of those who accept them. This writer once toured the ruins of the ancient Phoenician city of Gebaal, presently Byblos in Lebanon. The native guide pointed out the area of the oldest habitation, which dated back before 3000 B.C. There, he said, archaeologists in the 1930s excavated the tombs of hundreds of people who had been buried in large clay jars. Interestingly, the bodies had been placed in the fetal position, obviously indicating that it was believed they would be born into another life in some other world. In every culture on earth people have strongly believed that death does not end human existence, but life, or some part of it, continues in a dimension of time and space different from that here.

      In more recent times the growing skepticism of human wisdom has adopted the view that death means annihilation. Human existence is believed to be confined to the period between birth and death. To defend this view it is pointed out that no one who has actually died has come back from death to testify that another life awaits the human soul. Furthermore, they say, there is no scientific evidence that anything answering to a "soul" departs a body at death to fly away to some other world. Robert Ingersoll, the famous 19th Century atheist, expressed the view in these words: "Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the  only answer is the echo of a wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word."

      The central tenet of the Christian religion is that life indeed continues beyond death. The entire fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians presents, explains, and defends this conviction with zeal and solid conviction. Our text (above) declares that "if we have only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all men most to be pitied." Many people think that death terminates one's existence, and accepting that postulate, go on with life as best they can. Their ambition usually is to crowd as much meaning and pleasure into their daily activities as they can, thinking it to be the most they can do with their life. Christian doctrine, however, urges people to adopt its view and follow it by holding out the incentive of life after death in a state that far exceeds earthly life in both quality and longevity. If this teaching is a delusion, the product of overactive imaginations, then Christians certainly are "of all men most to be pitied." For by denying themselves the meaning and pleasure that this world offers, they are forfeiting all that humans are ever able to achieve. If the central issue of Christian faith is based on delusion, then either the God who foisted it upon us is indeed heartless, or else He does not exist, and the view is of human origin.

      This idea, however, can be reversed. If the Christian view is correct, then what about the person who believes his existence ends at death? After the confusion of the death event has passed, and the deceased discovers he is still existent and conscious in another world, what then? He lived his life for the moment with no reference to an afterlife, but now he "wakes up" in a very real afterlife for which he made no preparation. To this writer it seems far wiser to believe that death is a transition of life than its termination. If death ends all, I feel I have missed nothing, for I believe the temperate Christian life is far better than the one devoted to sensual and psychological pleasures. If death does transfer one's spirit into another world, for which preparation by the Gospel is necessary, then the unbeliever is the one who is in a wretched condition from which there is no possibility of recovery.

TRUE AND ACCEPTABLE WORSHIP

I Cor. 14:15 ... "What is the outcome then? I shall pray with the spirit, and I shall pray with the mind also; I shall sing with the spirit, and I shall sing with the mind also."

      One of the supernatural gifts conferred upon certain members in the church in Corinth was the ability to speak in tongues. The purpose of this gift was to bridge the language gap, so that a Christian preacher or teacher could readily convey the gospel message to someone in his own language. That is, the "tongues" were languages then spoken by nations or ethnic groups somewhere on earth. The gift of tongues was the ability from God to speak in those languages without the long, difficult process of learning them. It was not what it is often taken today to be, an incoherent babble expressed by someone in a highly emotional state.

      To a great extent the members in Corinth were abusing this gift. Rather than use it to its intended purpose, they were making vain and proud displays of it in their worship services. In this chapter Paul rebuked them for this excess and pointed them toward the proper, controlled use. He limited those who spoke in tongues at a given assembly to two or three, and then in succession, (v.27). Furthermore, no one could speak in tongues unless someone who could interpret was present, so that the audience would know what was being said, (vs.27-28). The net result of the tongues, as with all other gifts, was to be the edification of the church, (v.5), through a full understanding of what was being taught, (v.19). This would be accomplished only when "all things (were) done properly and in an orderly manner," (v.40).

      It is in this context that Paul makes the statement in I Cor. 14:15. In fact, he is repeating the word of Christ in Jno. 4:24, "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth." To worship God "in spirit" is the opposite of worshiping Him in a merely physical way. In Acts 17:24-25 the apostle declared that God "does not dwell in temples made with hands; neither is He served by human hands." The attempt to worship God with manual activity is vain.  The object of worship is to praise, glorify, and please God, and only He knows what will do that.  It is not human prerogative to employ any manual activity because it seems good, majestic and beautiful in sight or sound.  Christian worship must be restricted to what the New Testament reveals to us the early Christians did as they were instructed by the inspired apostles.  This is what it means to worship God "in truth."  There are five activities of worship revealed in the New Testament: singing (Eph. 5:19), praying (I Tim. 2:1), observing the Lord's Supper (I Cor. 11:23-29), monetary offering (I Cor. 16:2), and preaching / teaching (II Tim.4:2). In this brief article there is not sufficient space to cover all the particulars about how we are to sing, pray, observe the Lord's Supper, give, and preach / teach.

      In I Cor. 14:15, however, Paul emphasizes them with special reference to singing and praying. In the case of each the worshiper must engage with "understanding" and with "spirit." These terms relate to Jesus' requirements of "in truth" and "in spirit" in Jno. 4:24. They require us to respond to the plan of worship specified by God with a keen mind focused upon what we are doing and why we are doing it. It is possible to perform these acts of worship, which we have reduced to a routine through long repetition, with no conscious thought involved. One can sing "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" without missing a word or note, and never once think about the crucifixion of our Lord. One may eat the Lord's Supper while he mentally reviews yesterday's football game. Worship performed by habit, without meditation and discernment, is vain because it is not "in spirit" or "with understanding." How much of our worship is vain? How much affronts God rather than praises, petitions, and pleases Him? True and acceptable worship demands mental discipline which comes only through determination, concentration, and the awareness that God is real and always present.