Ephesians 5:1-2 Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

In yesterday’s entreaty on humanity I declared that every society is plagued with extremes. The issue of extreme acts has to be viewed in context to our own society. We who love God and are called into His great love do not see sacrificial service as an extreme. Others outside our family feel differently.

Do gooders, hypocrites, self-righteous, control freaks, downers and fools are just some of the tame terms thrown at us. Society at the extremities apply pressure upon us from the left and from the right. A stable mind makes the unstable uncomfortable. That is the way it should be.

It is irony that to bring stability to the human condition, God had to go through such an extreme act of love. I do not have to quote John 3:16 to you, even the godless know what it says. God coming down off His throne and becoming man was just the first extreme act. The life He lived was the second. The display of power was the third. His surrender to obedience unto death was His fourth. His becoming sin was His fifth. His resurrection was His sixth. His abiding presence is the seventh.

Seven is the number of perfection, completion and seven can only be reached by the six that precede. It also takes one extreme act upon our part to transform our ordinary lives into that life. It is ours if we but surrender our lives to Him by accepting that free will offering of salvation thru faith and placing our trust totally in Him.

Having done that, your God centered life will no longer be subject to being tossed about by extremes which is the chaos of the world.

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Genesis 6:5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Stanford University defines the humanities as: The humanities can be described as the study of how people process and document the human experience.

That is a broad definition. Cultural studies are broken down to process and document what the humanities mean to individual cultures, because not all cultures have the same experience. Yet in truth, all humanity shares one thing in common, no matter what the culture. Extremes.

Every culture which exists has suffered extremes. At one end is the extreme of violent and hostile domination. Cruelty in extremes assure security for a culture struggling to survive. Wars are littered with human cruelty too ugly to document without losing sight that humans perpetrated those acts. The worst offenders caught are labeled monsters, human monsters.

When a society dominates a large enough region to feel secure, their humanity moves away from cruelty to pleasure. All those energies created to win security are now free to exercise themselves in experiencing the other end of the scale of emotions. Inevitably the unrestrained search for pleasure leads to those extremes, debauchery.  Fleshly lust does not always need a willing partner to satisfy itself.

A close examination of any culture will reveal a natural resistance to extremes. Extremes make people uncomfortable. A culture that has a long history will reveal a pendulum which swings back and forth over time to societies that exhibit puritanical control at one end of the swing to unrestrained pleasure seeking at the other. Extremes.

Philippians 4:5 Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.

Societies with God at the center avoid extremes.

Extremist see that as a threat.