Entries Tagged 'Application' ↓

I will often ask God to reveal my sin to me. I want to see my pride so that I can repent of it and walk in humility. In my desire to be a humble man, I know that I must turn from my prideful ways, but I cannot do that until I see where the pride is to turn from it. So I pray that God, the One who see everything in my heart, would reveal the pride.

Then He does this. He allows me to completely fall on my face and pride is totally revealed and I don’t like it. It is painful. It reflects poorly on me. I have to apologize to people. It is just ugly and I don’t like it.

But did not God give me what I asked for?

It is strange to me that I am so eager to ask for my sin to be revealed, and then think that when God does that, it will be easy. But I think this true-ism could rightly be said of the process of turning from pride to humility:

Humility cannot come without the revelation of sin.

Sin must be exposed if we want humility to be cultivated in our lives. There are no shortcuts. It would be nice if I was humble simply by choosing to walk obediently, but the reality is that I don’t. I naturally choose my own wicked, deceitful, self-serving ways.

So, I am learning (again) that being a godly, humble man does not mean that I simply live that without ever doing the opposite. It means that I see the opposite ways more often and I turn back to the cross and there gain the correct perspective.

If you read the Bible with any amount of frequency, I’m sure you’ve experienced this. You have come across a passage and asked, “Why did they do that?” or “What does that mean?”. Biblical culture shock happens when we read something in the Scriptures that has specific meaning to the culture in which it was written. For us today, reading about customs and practices that were common in biblical times can be shockingly confusing. Unless we try to understand those cultures, we will fail to understand the situation and misinterpret the meaning of the passage.

For example, it is confusing for us why food sacrificed to idols is a big deal in 1 Corinthians 8, unless we understand how young converts were saved from pagan religions where the food was offered to idols and then that meat could be purchased at a local market.

Or we would have a hard time understanding the significance of being thrown out of the synagogue in John 12:42, unless we understood the controlling centrality of the synagogue on Jewish life.

Biblical culture shock should happen all the time and should humble us into learning the ways of the new culture. If you have not been hit by the strangeness of the biblical culture, then you need to plug your brain in before your reading your Bible and then realize that you are in unfamiliar territory and ask God’s Spirit to help you navigate through it.

If we aren’t careful, we can tend to become familiar and slack when it comes to relating to the God of the Bible. There are many things which can lead to such sluggish apathy, but I think one catalyst to such an attitude comes from interacting with Scripture on a surface level. We read the Bible in our language and we know it is talking about a great God. But we take the blessing of God’s Word being readable and knowable and then we begin to think that God is kind of like us. This does not happen immediately, but subtly.

I know it sounds so blasphemous to say that we think God is like us, but I can feel the tendency. I begin to just assume that God is an English speaking God who relates on a human level. But God is so far above us and beyond us. In fact, He says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8,9) He is entirely NOT human and completely different. Paul Washer said, “He is not quantitatively bigger than us, He is qualitatively different from us.” In other words, He does not just do everything better than us and in a larger capacity, but He does things differently.

The reading of the words that have come from the mouth of God must lead us to small view of God because the words are understandable, but to a high view of God that worships and thanks Him for speaking to us.

Jeff Lewis, my resident director during my time at TMC, gave this list to us during our last dorm chapel. It woke me in some areas where I was being lulled by the soft lies of my sin.

1. Don’t get lulled into thinking Heaven isn’t real, because it is.
2. Don’t get lulled into thinking Hell isn’t real, because it is.
3. Don’t get lulled into thinking sharing the gospel is a useless endeavor, because it’s not.
4. Don’t get lulled into thinking sexual sin stays hidden, because it doesn’t.
5. Don’t get lulled into thinking God’s Word doesn’t really have the power to change you and those around you, because it does.
6. Don’t get lulled into thinking that you come to God by anything other than the finished work of Christ on your behalf, because you don’t.
7. Don’t get lulled into thinking that you will regret spending your life walking with God, because you won’t.
8. Don’t get lulled into thinking that consistent time with God’s people is not vital to your soul, because it is.
9. Don’t get lulled into thinking that there really isn’t an adversary walking about who wants nothing more than to destroy you, because there is.
10. Don’t get lulled into thinking that the scope of God’s love for you is something you’ll ever be able to fully comprehend, because you won’t.

I’m convinced more and more that giving a meaningful “thank you” to someone is an art and a discipline. Giving thanks is a discipline because

-it does not come naturally -it requires you to stop and think about someone other than yourself -it requires that you are aware of God’s grace in other people -it needs to be practiced regularly -it glorifies God

I know from my own experience that it takes work to be able to write a thank you card which is specific to that person. I know how to roll out the Christian language so that it sounds like I have thought a lot about it, but I want to be able to speak in specifics, not generalities. So a person has been a blessing to me - why? I need to answer that question and tell that to them, not just stop at the blessing.

I have been surprised at how many things I am thankful for in other people that I had not recognized before. It only takes a little time and thoughtfulness and I have more than enough to write in a card or share to them face to face. I want to discipline myself to be one who not only thanks God, but also thanks people.