WHY YOU MUST LEARN SOBERNESS

ten1Peter 4:7 KJV
But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer.

Dear Believer,

Drunkenness is a vice that no one loves to be associated with. No person who is a drunkard goes about ‘flaunting’ their skills at making a fool of themselves. Everyone knows soberness is a virtue.

When someone speaks of drunkenness, we immediately think of intoxicants like wine and beer. As believers we think of passages like Proverbs 20:1 which says:

Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.

Or:

Proverbs 23:29-30 KJ2000
Who has woe? who has sorrow? who has contentions? who has babbling? who has wounds without cause? who has redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.

What we must understand is that drunkenness is also a metaphor for a lifestyle or practice of indulgence in negative vices.

Wine is a physical substance that intoxicates. There are also other moral and spiritual substances that can result in the dulling of our spiritual sensitivity.

Someone may be drunk on wine, while another gets drunk on pride. It is also possible to get drunk with anger. It is quite common to get drunk with lust.

Have you ever noticed that the effect of extreme emotions like uncontrolled anger can be like an intoxicant? People under the its influence act like they are drunk. The speak foolishly and act stupidly.

Just as no one wants to be friends with an angry man, King Solomon also counseled:

Proverbs 22:24-25 KJ2000
Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man you shall not go:  Lest you learn his ways, and get a snare to your soul.

We are called to be in control of our faculties any time. No kind of emotion must take over our senses as children of God. No vice of negative influence must drive us. We must maintain soberness.

Sobriety is one of the virtues that every believer must cultivate. Without it, we cannot exercise victory over Satan and his wiles. We are soldiers, and no one goes to war drunk as a skunk.

1Peter 5:8 KJ2000
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour:

Our soberness must be both physical and spiritual. The Believers that will miss the Lord at the end are going to be those who get drunk on the things of this world. That is why Jesus said:

Luke 21:34 KJV
And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.

Believer, watch out for the things that are taking over your thoughts and attention. If they aren’t of the Spirit of God and are filling you more and more, you may become ‘overcharged’ and be drunk with them. So watch what flows into you lest you lose your soberness.

Losing one’s soberness makes one to lose their discernment, sight and hearing. That’s and a dangerous place to be.

May you ever walk in discernment and watchfulness in the name if Jesus.

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