Good Sunday morning! The day is bright and sunny outside, but still on the cold side. Lately, I have felt the Holy Spirit fingering sore spots in my heart. This is not a bad thing, but it does hurt. In our pride we want to think that we are doing well in our Christian walk. A natural inclination of pride is to try to tell the Lord, "look what I have done!" We know intellectually from our Bible reading that all human effort is pointless in the end, and that only God can save us. I am not saying that working to buy a home, feed yourself and your family, and giving to charity is pointless work, but in the end none of that can save us. Many will come before the throne of God and be sent away, all the while saying, "but Lord, look what I did for you!" Do you tithe every week, taking care to give even ten percent of the herbs of your garden? The Pharisees did, and Jesus had nothing but harsh words for them.
What I am trying to point out in this is not that tithing or giving, or doing good is wrong, quite the contrary, but that thinking that I or you or anyone else can do something for God, or to save ourselves, leads to pride. God does not need my help, but I need His help every moment of the day. God grants me the ability to work, to earn money, to give generously, to help others, and the many other things that I can do. How is it that I should have any pride when all that I can do comes from God? Yet that pride sneaks up and I have found myself coming up again and again with plans to improve myself. "I gotta do this and that, and then life will be perfect." The first thing to do will be to step back out of the way of the Holy Spirit and let God shine His light on the real problem. After that the blessing will come when the symptoms go away through the light chasing away the darkness that causes those symptoms. This is deep, and will probably take some time, perhaps the remainder of my life on this earth, before the work is complete.
God loves you and wants to bring you closer to Him!
Bucky
No comments:
Post a Comment