Pride, part 3

It has been some time since I have sat down at my computer to write. It is good to be back and thinking about things the Lord would have me to learn.  I am reading a book that has been around for awhile but it is new to me.  It is called When People are Big and God is Small by Edward T. Welch.  To say it has consumed my thoughts would be an understatement.  I am obsessed with what I am learning from this book.  I highly recommend it.  But these things do not get to the subject of this post which is the consequences of pride.

I will begin my thoughts on this subject with the understanding that this blog is written by a fellow sojourner attempting to follow Christ the best I know how.  My thoughts are neither comprehensive nor guaranteed to be accurate.  I suggest, like with all Biblical teaching, you search the scriptures and ask the Holy Spirit to teach and guide you.  These are my thoughts and what I am learning along the way.

In my own life, I have suffered from the consequences of pride.  The first and hopefully most obvious consequence is that pride leads to estrangement from God.  We saw this scripture in an earlier post, Psalm 10:4, "In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God."  No room for God.  What does that look like?  For me it means that I am consumed with my own strength and self sufficiency.  Makes me think of the famous Frank Sinatra song,  My Way. One of the lines goes like this: "I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway. And more, much more than this, I did it my way." 

It is true, you can plan your own course and you can do it your way.  But I can assure you, you will spend your life and possibly eternity separated from God.  When I am doing life my way, I exalt myself above God.  I usurp his authority and rightful place on the throne.  It is never a pretty picture.

The second consequence can be found in both Proverbs 11:2, "When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom." and Proverbs 16:18 that says, "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."  Every time I begin to think I am all that you can bet I am about to learn another lesson.  Thankfully the lessons hurt enough to send me to my Father with a prayer of confession.  If it doesn't, my head continues to swell and the next consequence will hurt a bit more. 

Continuing to ignore the consequence of pride will suck you into a vortex of sin that reaps destruction all over the place.  A perfect example of this can be found in 2 Samuel, chapter 11.  I challenge you to read this Biblical account of "a man after God's own heart."  His story is proof that even the most ardent lover of God can fall victim to the lure of pride. 

I have been sucked into this vortex and of this you can be certain: there is no blessing down that road.  What I learned about myself is that I frequently have one of two reactions in trying to justify the disaster of my pride.  I wonder if either of these ring true in your life.  The first is that I will try to minimize my failure.  I justify that what I did really wasn't that big a deal to God.  The second way I try to recover from the disaster of pride would be to blame it on someone or something else.  These reactions are wrong from every angle.  We cannot experience true forgiveness until we take complete ownership of our pride and its consequence. 

I cling to the promise of Philippians 1:6 "that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."  God loves us too much to leave us in our muck and mire.  I am ever so grateful to him for not leaving me in my pit.  Will you join me today in saying, Yes, Lord!  Yes to his way.  Yes to his authority.  Yes to him!  God is God and I am not.

Pride, Part 2

I recently had a conversation about praying for the perpetrator of the Colorado movie theater shootings and his parents. My impression was that this person thought I was being far too generous to suggest that the shooter's parents or the shooter deserved any kind of compassion or prayer. Their argument was that the parents were somehow negligent and/or responsible for their son turning into such a monster. And while that may be true, I don't think we can automatically assume such a position.

Now, let me be clear, I believe this young man should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and should indeed be held accountable and punished. Make no mistake, if found guilty, he should never be released from prison. With that said, though, I do believe that all of us who follow Jesus should be praying not only for the victims and their families, but for the shooter and his family too. To think that any one of us who raises a child does it so well that this could not possibly happen to them is, I think, an insidious form of pride.

 And that brings me to what I talked about in my last blog: Point 2, Pride takes many forms. We often recognize the pride in other people long before we see it in ourselves. You may have experienced the repercussions of a boss or coworker who used insults to humiliate. Or maybe you've had a teenager roll their eyes because they were certain they knew more than you. But what about the not so obvious?

I went to God's word to see what I could find. Of course I found the Bible had much to say about pride. But what I wanted was not so much the consequences because that is for the next blog. What I really wanted was sort of a definition....a way to identify pride in my own life. I want to be able to see these subtle, but harmful tendencies in my own heart before God decides I need some consequences. What I found convicted my heart.

Jeremiah 9:23-24: Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”

Another way to translate boast is "to glory in." I could be wrong, but I think the problem arises when "we glory in." Not a thing wrong with working hard, living right and teaching our children to make good choices. After all the Bible also teaches that we reap what we sow. But to think that I am immune to having a child go into a movie theater with the intent to harm simply because I did all the right things as a mom is to "glory in" my own ability. To think that I am somehow exempt or protected from tragedy because I do all the right things is "to glory in." There, and there alone, go I except for the grace of God.

I've been plenty guilty of having pride when it comes to my children.  I have often compared my children to some other's just to give my own ego a boost.  The same can be said about many areas of my life.  I'm ashamed to admit that God has pointed out numerous pits of pride for me to work on eliminating.  How about you?  Will you join me in saying,  "May all my boasting be in this: that I understand and know the Lord, recognizing His character and acknowledging He is the Lord?"

Pride, part 1

Several weeks ago, I was playing that drawing game on my iPad.  It is similar to Pictionary and you play with another person online.  Between the two of us, we were on a winning streak into the 40’s.  In spite of my serious lack of artistic ability, I discovered the joy of racking up points.  In fact, I had become pretty prideful about how good I was at drawing so many of the words.  I had even begun to secretly congratulate myself after every turn.  The computer beeped and I clicked on the appropriate icon to play the game once again.  I very cleverly sketched a fabulous outline of the Empire State Building with a stick figure King Kong at the top.  I included the helicopter and the beautiful young maiden that needed to be rescued.  Quite pleased with myself, I hurried to send the drawing to my friend.  As soon as I hit the send key to my shock and horror, I discovered my word was not King Kong, but Hong Kong.  Oh the humiliation that flooded my mind.

This sad but true story made me laugh out loud at myself and taught me some much needed lessons.  Lessons, I must continue to learn again and again.  You see what I have discovered about myself is that I have a huge spiritual issue with pride.  I’m telling you, it creeps in at every opportunity and if I’m not paying attention I end up smack in the middle of a train wreck every single time.  I bet you do, too. 

So, what’s a girl to do?  I asked God that very thing and He oh, so gently pointed a few things out to me from His Word.  The following is what I learned:

1. Pride is offensive to God.   
2. Pride takes many forms.
3. Pride has consequences.

Starting with how pride is offensive to God, we must understand who God is.  God is, well God.  There is none like Him.  He is the Alpha and Omega; He is Omniscient, Omnipresent, and Omnipotent. He is Creator of all and by His Word, all things hold together.  He is Light, He is Life, and He is Love.  He is perfect and He is Holy.  He is righteous and He is just.  He is my Healer, my Redeemer and my Savior.  There is NONE like the Most High God, Almighty.  Pride says, “I know more than God.”  He alone deserves the honor and in pride, we take what belongs to Him

I asked God to show me something special and immediately He caused me to find Psalm 10:4, “In his pride the wicked man does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God.”  I wondered if this verse was one of the reasons that pride was detestable to the Lord.  Pride keeps us from seeking the Lord.  Wow, didn’t see that one coming.  When I have pride I not only say I know more than God, I also say there is no room for God. 

Yup… time for some much needed prayer.  I have much to confess.  We’ll talk about the other two things I learned next time. 

Look

I love the old hymn "Turn your eyes upon Jesus."  I really love that hymn!  Here is the chorus:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His Glory and Grace.

It was a favorite song for my mom as well.  We sang it at her funeral.  It has a tremendous amount of personal meaning to me.  I used it as a lullaby for each of my children.  Every time the babies would hear that song you could see them calm down and relax.  It worked like that for my mom as she suffered from dementia.  As she drew close to death, I would sing that chorus to her and you could see her physically relax.  As I walked through that dark time in my life, I hummed the song often to myself because it reminded me to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus.

The author and composer of the song is Helen H. Lemmel who lived from 1864 until 1961.  In addition to being known as a brilliant singer and musician, Mrs. Lemmel was also widely recognized as a woman with remarkable literary ability. She wrote more than five hundred hymns and poems.  The inspiration for this hymn came from Hebrews 12:1-2

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

I've been thinking about these verses this week as I am in the midst of a Bible study on the book of Hebrews.  This week, yup, chapter 12.  There are a gazillion sermons that could be preached from these two verses.  They are so full it makes my head spin.  But as I pondered verse two:  "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God," I found an amazing truth: 

The joy set before him.

What was the "joy set before him?"  I don't know all the answers, but I know one.  He knew that at the completion of his work on earth, man could be reconciled to God through him.  The "joy set before him?"  Me!  He was thinking about the joy of having a relationship with me!  He thought about you, too.  His very heart was to reconcile each of us to God, to himself.

Jesus fixed his eyes on the joy set before him so I could fix my eyes on Jesus.  Go ahead, I dare you to look.  In fact, stare.  Fix your eyes. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim. 

Resurrection

A Face Book friend proposed this question:  Would you believe the resurrection if someone told you it happened today?  What a great question.  I would have to answer “Yes!”  You see, my faith isn’t some pie in the sky mythology.  It is based on fact.  The facts are found in the very Bible itself.  The books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are the narratives of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  These books record that after his resurrection, Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene and the other women.  He appeared to the eleven disciples.  He appeared to two men on the road to Emmaus.  In fact, he appeared to several hundred people over the course of 40 days as recorded in 1 Corinthians 15.  Most of the people who testified to the resurrection of Christ were so convinced of the resurrection, they were willing to die for their faith.  From John 20:29 ’Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”’

I know from personal experience that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a God who desires a personal relationship with His people. It says in Deuteronomy 4:29 “But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.”  God tells us nearly the exact same thing in Jeremiah 29:13 “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”  Down through the ages, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has required one thing:  faith.  Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.   We have many examples from Scripture of those who had great faith.  By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man by God.  By faith Noah spent 100 years, in holy fear, building an ark even though he had never seen rain.  By faith Abraham, who was called to leave his home, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead.  By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the pharaoh’s command.  And later as an adult, Moses, by faith, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel. These are examples from Genesis and Exodus.  There are many more as you read about Gideon, Samson, David, Samuel, and the prophets. (From Hebrews 11)

The bottom line is you either believe God or you don’t.  If I could talk you into belief than someone could talk you out of it.  Jesus is the Son of God who died for my sins and your sins.  Some say he was a good man and some say he was a good prophet.  Some say he did not exist until His birth.  But he is either Jesus, God incarnate or he is a lunatic.  He is who he claims to be or he is a liar.  So I would suggest that if you really want to know if the resurrection is true, you ask God.  Because if you seek Him, you will find Him, when you seek with all your heart.

Legacy

The books of 1 & 2 Kings tell the story of how the nation of Israel is divided between north and south.  The northern kingdom is Israel and the southern is called Judah.  During the time of the prophets Elijah and Elisha, a godly man named Jehoshaphat becomes king of Judah.  First Kings 22:43 says that “In everything Jehoshaphat walked in the ways of his father and did not stray from them; he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.” 

At the same time, Ahab and his wife Jezebel are rulers in the northern kingdom, Israel.  In First Kings 16, the word describes Ahab as “someone who did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him."  He considered it inconsequential to commit the sins of idol worship and rebellion.  He did more to provoke the Lord to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him.

Do you see the very distinct differences here?  However, it soon gets very messy for the kingdom of Judah.  You see, Jehoshaphat eventually grows old and hands the kingdom over to his son, Jehoram who is married to Ahab’s daughter.  Her name is Athaliah and she ardently promoted Baal worship and brought the evil religion into the throne room.  Jehoram may be king of Judah but he proves to be a terrible ruler as a result of his conversion to Baal worship.  He is known solely for introducing the evil influences of Ahab’s household into the southern kingdom.   In fact, 2 Chronicles 21 says that “he passed away to no one’s regret.”

So I think about the impact one family can have on other people.  As years passed, the sins of Ahab drag people into a cesspool of idolatrous worship.  Sin had so saturated Ahab’s immediate and extended family that God had to put an end to his family line just to preserve the nation of Israel. I want to leave a different legacy.  How about you?

Your family may not influence the course of a nation, but it can have significant bearing on your community, schools and workplace.  So our challenge is to follow Jesus' command in Matthew 5:16 and "let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

Covenant Keeper

Reading Revelation has made me think about my salvation and the assurance of that salvation.  I belong to Christ irrevocably through His gift. I think about how God worked in the Old Testament and thought of the promises made to the patriarchs.  Some of those promises were conditional in that they had to meet God’s requirements before God was obligated to bless them.  But God always specified when a promise was conditional.  Then I pondered God’s covenant promises and how even when people messed up and sinned, God still kept his promise.  It is a pattern we see throughout the Word of God.  God is a covenant keeping God.

So I spent time in prayer this week and asked God to show me specific passages regarding our salvation.  I would like to share with you some of the ones I found.

I John 1:7-9 says:  ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. ⁸ If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

John 3:16-18:  ¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

John 10:27-29:  ²⁷ My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. ²⁸ I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. ²⁹ My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.

Jude, verse 24:  ²⁴ To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—

And finally Romans 11:29:  ²⁹ for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.

All of these verses, along with several others lead me to conclude that I am saved from ALL unrighteousness, even my future sin. The Lord has cancelled my debt completely.  Jesus is able and when He says He gives me eternal life, it begins at salvation.  When He says we will never perish, He means it!  And finally, salvation and the Holy Spirit are gifts we receive freely from God at the time we believe and Romans confirms to me that God’s gifts are irrevocable, binding, permanent, and final.  Praise and glory to Him who sits on the throne!!