Humble Pie

I am so incredibly thankful for Romans 8:28.    This process of sanctification is long and often trying, but I am so grateful that the God I serve is One who breaks into my brokenness and pieces me back together with the transforming power of His grace and mercy.   

What was my most recent “break-through”?  It was my last post, titled “Lists: Your Plans or God’s?”.  Actually, the “break-through” did not occur until several days after my posting.  It was then that God quickly brought to my attention the rotten state of my proud heart.  Through His Spirit and the words of other believing friends, He removed the scales from my eyes and allowed me to see that while the things I wrote in my last post may have indeed been true, they were not written in a spirit of grace and humility.  Rather, my last post was an arrogant response to the seemingly proud and conceited “list mentality”.   I am so convicted by Luke 6:45 which reads, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”  And what was the attitude of my heart?  Pride, and it manifested itself in my self-righteous post.  Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! I do not have everything figured out, and I am increasingly realizing how incredibly prone I am to the sin of thinking I do!

I love how John Piper portrays this battle between the Spirit and the flesh in one of his sermons. He states:

Picture your flesh—that old ego with the mentality of merit and craving for power and reputation and self-reliance—picture it as a dragon living in some cave of your soul. Then you hear the gospel, and in it Jesus Christ comes to you and says, "I will make you mine and take possession of the cave and slay the dragon. Will you yield to my possession? It will mean a whole new way of thinking and feeling and acting." You say: "But that dragon is me. I will die." He says, "And you will rise to newness of life, for I will take its plan; I will make my mind and my will and my heart your own." You say, "What must I do?" He answers, "Trust me and do as I say. As long as you trust me, we cannot lose." Overcome by the beauty and power of Christ you bow and swear eternal loyalty and trust.

And as you rise, he puts a great sword in your hand and says, "Follow me." He leads you to the mouth of the cave and says, "Go in, slay the dragon." But you look at him bewildered, "I cannot. Not without you." He smiles. "Well said. You learn quickly. Never forget: my commands for you to do something are never commands to do it alone." Then you enter the cave together. A horrible battle follows and you feel Christ's hand on yours. At last the dragon lies limp. You ask, "Is it dead?" His answer is this: "I have come to give you new life. This you received when you yielded to my possession and swore faith and loyalty to me. And now with my sword and my hand you have felled the dragon of the flesh. It is a mortal wound. It will die. That is certain. But it has not yet bled to death, and it may yet revive with violent convulsions and do much harm. So you must treat it as dead and seal the cave as a tomb. The Lord of darkness may cause earthquakes in your soul to shake the stones loose, but you build them up again. And have this confidence: with my sword and my hand on yours this dragon's doom is sure, he is finished, and your new life is secure."

I think that is the meaning of Galatians 5:24, "Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." Christ has taken possession of our soul. Our old self has been dealt a mortal wound and stripped of its power to have dominion. The Christian life, the fruit of the Spirit, is a constant reckoning of the flesh as dead (piling stones on its tomb) and a constant relying on the present Spirit of Christ to produce love, joy, and peace within. The difference between the Christian life and popular American morality is that Christians will not take one step unless the hand of Christ holds the hand that wields the sword of righteousness.

I am so thankful that I am not alone, for I know how helpless I am to save myself.  If I want to destroy this dragon within me, I need Someone great.  Only He who is within me possesses the power to bring about my sanctification, and I am so thankful that my God is committed to helping me destroy this dragon that rears its ugly head of pride and self-righteousness.  

I am not naïve enough to think that the battle it over.  In fact, I am so aware of my sinful and needy state that I have no doubt I will continue to sin in this area.  By God’s grace, however, I don’t want to give Satan a foothold.  My prayer is that I will awake every morning and prostrate myself before the foot of the cross, for it is there that I am safest.  May God continually keep me on my knees before Him, and may I never forget my own desperate and needy state!  And when I do fall and fail, may He grant me to humility and confidence to boldly confess my sins. 

In my pride I was blind to my own self-righteousness and utterly convinced that my last post was justified.  Indeed, the words may have been, but the heart and spirit behind my words were not.  The following prayer from the Valley of Vision fits my situation perfectly. 

"Self-Knowledge"

“Searcher of Hearts,

It is a good day to me when thou givest me a glimpse of myself;

Sin is my greatest evil, but thou art my greatest good;

I have cause to loathe myself, and not to seek self-honour,

for no one desires to commend his own dunghill.

My country, family, church fare worse because of my sins,

For sinners bring judgment in thinking sins are small, or

That God is not angry with them.

Let me not take other good men as my example,

and think I am good because I am like them,

For all good men are not so good as thou desirest,

Are not always consistent,

Do not always follow holiness,

Do not feel eternal good in sore affliction.

Show me how to know when a thing is evil

Which I think is right and good,

How to know when what is lawful

Comes from an evil principle,

Such as desire for reputation or wealth by usury.

Give me grace to recall my needs,

My lack of knowing thy will in Scripture,

Of wisdom to guide others,

Of daily repentance, want to which keeps thee at bay,

Of the spirit of prayer, having words without love,

Of zeal for thy glory, seeking my own ends,

Of joy in thee and thy will, of love to others.

And let me not lay my pipe too short of the fountain,

Never touching the eternal spring, never drawing down water from above.

-The Valley of Vision, p. 122f

This is such a powerful reminder that I am not above reproach.  Even more so, however, I rejoice that God uses even my most miserable failings to bring about my sanctification and ultimately His glory.  What a promise we have in Romans 8:28!   

Man a Nothing

This week began in a not-so-pleasant manner, to say the least.  I had so much to do and by Sunday afternoon things were already falling apart.  I tend to pride myself in my organization and capabilities and how others view me, but as this week went on I grew increasingly aggravated as my efforts crumbled before me.  I was busy and stressed, and it felt as though the harder I tried, the worse things became. In fact, by the middle of the week I had begun to expect that everything that could potentially go wrong would.  But what did this cause me to do?  Did I run back to the cross and surrender up my all?  No, I pushed God further away as I relied increasingly on myself—the worse things became, the more I dug in my heels, determined to make it through on my own.  It wasn’t until the other day that I realized my insanity, and it was as though God suddenly hit me upside the head with the reality of what my heart idolatries were causing me to do.  I had been running in a great circle, but not only that, it was a steep, downward-spiraling circle.  Everything that came to me throughout the week had been meant to drive me back to Christ, but in my stubbornness I became increasingly self-sufficient, blindly running headlong into self-destruction.  I am reminded now of how desperately I need to be saved from myself!  I have puffed myself up with pride and forgotten that any good thing I possess is an undeserved gift of God’s mercy—I am so quick to flaunt myself proudly, and yet that which I arrogantly flaunt is not my own!  My prayer is that God will strip me of my pride and self-sufficiency, and that His Spirit will be at work in my heart, guarding me against the lies of the Devil that threaten to take me captive should I give them a foothold.  I am learning that at the cross is where I am safest, and I am never so vulnerable as when I get up off my knees.  May I walk before my Lord in humility, resigning all to Him.  The following prayer is from the Valley of Vision, and it is titled “Man a Nothing.”  I love it, and pertains perfectly to my experience this past week.  

O Lord,

I am a shell of dust,

but am animated with an invisible rational soul

and made anew by an unseen power of grace;

Yet I am no rare object of valuable price,

but one that has nothing and is nothing,

although chosen of thee from eternity,

given to Christ, and born again;

I am deeply convinced

of the evil and misery of a sinful state,

of the vanity of creatures,

but also of the sufficiency of Christ.

When thou wouldst guide me I control myself,

When thou wouldst be sovereign I rule myself.

When thou wouldst take care of me I suffice myself.

When I should depend on thy providings I supply

myself,

When I should submit to thy providence I follow

my will,

When I should study, love honour, trust thee,

I serve myself;

I fault and correct thy laws to suit myself,

Instead of thee I look to a man’s approbation,

and am by nature an idolater.

Lord, it is my chief design to bring my heart back

to thee.

Convince me that I cannot be my own God,

or make myself happy,

nor my own Christ to restore my joy,

nor my own Spirit to teach, guide, rule me.

Help me to see that grace does this by providential

affliction,

for when my credit is good thou dost cast me 

lower,

when riches are my idol thou dost wing them

away,

when pleasure is my all thou dost turn it into

bitterness.

Take away my roving eye, curious ear, greedy

appetite, lustful heart;

show me that none of these things

can heal a wounded conscience,

or support a tottering frame,

or uphold a departing spirit.

Then take me to the cross

and leave me there.

The Valley of Vision: The 'Nevers' of the Gospel

O LORD, 

May I never fail to come to the knowledge 

of the truth,

 never rest in a system of doctrine, however 

scriptural, that does not bring or further 

salvation, 

or teach me to deny ungodliness and

 worldly lusts, 

or help me to live soberly, righteously, godly; 

never rely on my own convictions and resolutions, 

but be strong in thee and in they might; 

never cease to find thy grace sufficient

in all my duties, trials, and conflicts;

never forget to repair to thee

in all my spiritual distresses and outward

troubles,

in all the dissatisfactions experienced in

creature comforts;

never fail to retreat to him who is full of grace

and truth, the friend that loveth at all times,

who is touched with feelings of my infirmities,

and can do exceeding abundantly for me;

never confine my religion to extraordinary

occasions, but acknowledge thee in all my ways;

never limit my devotions to particular seasons

but be in they fear all the day long;

ever be godly only on the sabbath

in in thy house, but on every day abroad

and at home;

never make piety a dress but a habit,

not only a habit but a nature,

not only a nature but a life.

Do good to me by all thy dispensations,

by all means of grace, 

by worship, prayers, praises,

And at last let me enter that world where is

no temple, but only thy glory

and the Lamb's.