Take heed to yourselves lest your heart be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness Take heed to yourselves lest your heart be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a snare” (Luke 21:34)
Living in the last days, awaiting the coming of the Lord, being always on alert—in a constant state of alert—means living in a certain way, not according to the flesh and its desires for pleasure, which only divide the heart from a pure love of God, from being reserved for the Lord alone. We are rather to live according to the Spirit in all purity, simplicity, and plainness. Living in a constant state of preparation for the coming of the Lord means to live detached from the pleasures of the world, for they are like thorns which choke the seed, preventing it from bearing fruit (Luke 8:14). We are rather to serve but one Master only, the Lord, not two masters—God and also mammon, that is, the riches and pleasures of the world (Matt. 6:24). It is impossible to serve two masters, although many try. This only divides the heart. We are rather to have but one treasure only, the Lord (Matt. 6:19-21), because where your treasure is, there also will your heart be (Matt. 6:21). This is why it will be difficult for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. “Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matt. 19:23-24). This is because the rich are usually surrounded by pleasures and divided by them.
Those who try to save their life in this worldly way, filling themselves with the delights of the world, lose their life with God. It is rather he who loses his life in this world, sacrificing all for Christ, who will truly save his life with God (Mark 8:35). “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:25). We lose our life in this world to save it with Christ by living only for Jesus Christ, renouncing all else, sacrificing it for the sake of Christ. Those who feel secure in this world are actually in great danger, for “when people say, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them as travail comes upon a woman with child, and there will be no escape” (1 Thess. 5:3).
“Those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (Rom. 8:8). We are all in the flesh in the sense that we have bodies, but St. Paul’s meaning is that we should live in the Spirit and not in the flesh, that is, we should follow the guidance of the Spirit of God and not the desires of the flesh for unnecessary pleasure, which only divides the heart. “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live” (Rom. 8:13).
“Woe to those who rise early in the morning, that they may run after strong drink, who tarry late into the evening till wine enflames them! They have lyre and harp, timbrel and flute and wine at their feasts; but they do not regard the deeds of the Lord, or see the work of his hands. Therefore my people go into exile for want of knowledge” (Isa. 5:11-
13). This is to be in the flesh or to live according to the flesh, and St. Paul clearly says, “Walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would … And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires … For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life” (Gal. 5:16-17, 25; 6:8). The words of the Bible are clear for those who read them with a pure heart and an open mind and want to follow them. Clearly more than only adultery, fornication, and gluttony is meant by life in the flesh, but the anti-ascetical attempt to exclude these meanings from St. Paul’s words is misguided.
There are then two ways of life: life according to the flesh on the one hand, and life in the Spirit (or according to the Spirit) on the other hand. We are called to a life in the Spirit and to crucify ourselves to the world. “Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14). We are to die with Christ to the life of the old man and rise with him to the life of the new man, which is life in the Spirit (Eph 4:22-24; Rom 6:4). Thus shall we be prepared for the coming of the Son of man. Thus shall we live worthily in these last days, awaiting the coming of the Lord.
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