Pride or Awe?

"We are proud of you, We are proud of you (clap, clap, clap)" 

The West Orange Wildcat Challenger Team

The cheer rang out though the entire stadium.  My daughter and her cheer team had just completed their routine in front of hundreds of their peers and it had been a success--not perfect, but exuberant and heart-felt.  What had elicited all this selfless praise from selfish teenagers? 

Katie's cheerleading team is unique.  Katie and her team-mates face tremendous challenges every day just doing things like reading, speaking and running.  Each of these girls have a serious disability of some kind.  The fact that these girls were out there doing the same cheers that every other little girl does with unbridled passion provided a tearful reminder to many in that crowd that life isn't always fair, but we are valuable regardless of who we are and what we are able to do.

Our society elevates pride as a positive and encouraging feeling.  We are told to work hard and you can take pride in all you have accomplished.  It's a hard message to refute--it sounds right.  So why does the Bible portray pride as such a powerfully destructive emotion?  Is it just too much of a good thing or is there something fundamentally wrong with it? 

As bond-servants of the Most High God, the problem with pride, or even self-confidence, is where we place the focus.  Every moment we have a choice between self-oriented pride or God-centered awe.  We can elevate man or we can thank God.  One puffs-up.  The other provides a realistic assessment of our standing before someone much greater than ourselves and brings us to a grateful reverence.

The girls did a good thing and got praise for it, but did they get praise for an expertly performed routine?  Every other team on that mat did better than they did--so why the standing ovation for them?  Why did coaches stand in awe, with tears running down their faces?  In many ways, the heart-emotion Katie's team elicited was a gut-level recognition that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, regardless of our ability.  Before God, we are all disabled in comparison but we are profoundly valuable anyway. 

It's hard to see that when you're comparing the technical skill of one fantastic team against another.  That's what competition is all about.  The winner earns the "right" to feel pride for a job done better than their peers.  The comparison is temporary--a moment in time--and elevates one group at the expense of others.  Those who did not win the prize leave the competition in tears. 

I'm not necessarily saying that competition is inherently bad (I think...for the moment the jury is out on that one).  I wonder if God sees our competitiveness like the annoyance of sibling rivalry: each child crying out, "Look at ME!!!  I'm the Best!!! Pay attention to ME!!"  The Father has seen and treasures each child uniquely, but try explaining that to a brother and sister fighting for attention (and yes, this is one place Katie is perfectly normal.) 

On the other hand, when we gratefully recognize the work that God has done in and through us, it lifts us up, changes our focus and encourages all who see it.  Our world may never get past the one-up-man-ship of competitive pride, but as children of an incomparable God, we have the chance for something better: the reverent awe of a grateful participant in a much larger story.  People are small and frail and cannot bear the weight of worship directed toward themselves.  There is nothing like praise to thoroughly ruin a man.     

Pride puffs up.  Humble reverence lifts up.  Which one would you rather have?

Prayer burnout

 

Have you ever just gotten tired of praying for people?  I can't tell you how many old style Wednesday night prayer meetings have left me irritated and exhausted.  Most of the requests seem to be about people who get sick and stay that way:

"Dear Lord, Aunt Edna's gout is out of control again...please make it ok for her to eat whatever she pleases and still be able to get around enough to make her Christmas fruitcake..."

Ok, I do have more compassion than that.  I've been in pain regularly and it's, well...a pain.

As many of you know, I'm writing a lab manual for a Prayer Lab--a course on prayer that focuses on praying, rather than lecture.  As I was writing the chapter on long term intercessory prayer, I included a guideline that our vertical time with the Father should always be longer than the time we spend interceding for others. Of course, if we are praying continually, that leaves lots of room for intercession.  I felt uncomfortable with including it, not because it was a bad guideline, but because I didn't have a specific scripture I could use to back it up so I began to ask the Father about it and this is what He sent me from John 15:

• ⁵ “...I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing
• ⁴ Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.
• ⁷ But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted!

So the equation is this:

Life from Christ in > Fruit for Christ out

 

For my not so mathematical friends:

 

The life we receive from Christ will always be greater than what we can fruitfully give out. 

We cannot give what we have not already received from Christ.

 

That's what, "Apart from Me, you can do nothing," means.  We can do things of our own strength, even pray for others out of our own strength, but it will mean absolutely nothing in eternal terms.  It's what Paul is referring to when he talks about us building with wood, hay and stubble.  When we build out of our own resources, the product will amount to kindling in God's eyes.  When we build from what He provides, it will be something worthy of Him because the gold, silver and precious stones He provided are the stuff He deserves. 

 

Personally, I wear out of energy not long after I start trying to minister in my own strength.  For this I'm grateful.  I know the difference between prayer that is bourn on the winds of the Holy Spirit and the labor of prayer from my human capability.  The moment I find I'm struggling to find His power or drive for intercession, I know I haven't had enough time with Him for myself and for His glory.  No fruit means I haven't been abiding.  I have a choice.  I can keep trying on my own or I can stop and enjoy Him--and that's an easy choice, though it may take me awhile to make it sometimes.  Part of what He does when I abide in Him is assure that my focus is on Him and not my circumstances or difficulties. 

 

What about you?  How is your own time with Him coming?  What can you do practically to make sure that your focus is on Him and He has your full attention before you start to minister, whether it's prayer, service or speaking?  I'd love to hear from you...

What is Christmas without Christ?

Nice but not enough...

I have always loved Christmas.  What's not to love?  Twinkling lights, shiny presents, friends and family, music--an ADHD extravaganza!  (Squirrel!)

The catch is that crisis happens any time of the year.  Our family is not immune.  In fact, we find life-altering crisis so frequently, we have come to think we eat it for breakfast--and it tastes like Wheaties most of  the time.  But when CRISIS comes in the middle of this joyous season, the music begins to sound tinny and irritating, the greetings become annoying, and family gatherings can become just another place to wish for "Peace on earth, goodwill toward men." 

At that point, what you believe about the season begins to really matter. 

If Christmas is just a secular holiday, then it becomes an inescapable reminder of pain and pathos. It feels macabre, like a song out of tune or a waking nightmare--Halloween held over.  It's easy to feel like you have to put on a happy face when all you want to do is scream for it to stop.  Anguished bitterness has a catch-phrase:  "Bah Humbug." 

But there's another way.  At the core of a Christ-filled Christmas is a captivating word: 

Immanuel

God with us.

Somehow that simple thought wraps the pain in a blanket of peace like new-fallen snow.  The ground may be just as hard and unyielding, but everything is clean and beautiful again because we are not alone, or at least we don't have to be alone.   

Yet, at the end of that nightmare came a miracle:  God came to live with us.  God came to walk in our shoes by our side.  He didn't take the crisis away.  It was still a smelly stable.  They were still a long way from home and family--and it was going to get a lot worse before it got better.  Yet His presence was enough to make it all very different.  And just in case they had forgotten the enormity of what just happened, Joseph and Mary get a night-time wakeup call from an awe-struck crowd of shepherds that told of angel anthems and all of Heaven rejoicing.  Jesus told us:

"¹⁰ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."

The next time the enemy of your souls comes to steal your joy, kill your hope and destroy your holiday, remember again that you have a choice:  your pain can be faced alone or with the greatest gift ever given:  Immanuel. 

Isaiah 10-14: God is love or God is wrath? Yes.

We hear a lot about how God is a God of love and that is the truth, but this kind of love extends far beyond just a feeling.  This is the kind of love that wants the best for the object of its affection.  It is a protective, compassionate, love that is driven for the growth and well-being of the ones that are loved.  This love will be as tough as it needs to be to get to what it must have, by its very nature.  This is a love of justice first and foremost, and a desire for those God created to become like Himself. 

That type of love will express itself in wrath.  It cannot be any other way.  That passion includes protection for the beloved and a demand for the right, even from His beloved.  We see it reflected in the passion of a momma bear--protective and unyielding, first to any attacker, but also in correcting her own.  In Isaiah 10, God shows his wrath against unfair judges and their treatment of the poor and oppressed.  In response, He sends Assyria as a tool to correct those judges, but their love of violence makes them the next target for His wrath.  Similarly, God chooses to use the Babylonians as a tool of correction for Israel's idolatry and injustice, but their cruelty does not go unpunished either. 

That's one of the reasons so many of these passages ultimately include promises of a Messiah that will execute God's justice rightly.  His wrath will be sure and final, but only toward those who abuse others and reject His leadership.  Peace cannot be had when men oppose an omnipotent God. 

If we measure our offenses by the scales that compare our sins to others, we might be able to get the scales to balance or come close but that's not the scales that will be used.  The wages (balancing punishment) for sin--any sin--is death.  His justice cannot abide the affront to His righteousness or the offense to His other children.  It is amazing that there is any rescue afforded at all. 

That's why chapter 12 is so profound.  He provides our salvation so that His anger can be satisfied, therefore:

    “I will praise you, O Lord!
You were angry with me, but not any more.
    Now you comfort me.
See, God has come to save me.
    I will trust in him and not be afraid."

Isaiah 5-9: God's expectations and the coming storm

These chapters look remarkably familiar.  Can you see our own headlines in these chapters?

A well tended vineyard that produces sour grapes...

Real estate investing and hoarding along with evictions of the poor resulting in mass vacancy...

Addictive drunkenness and partying...

The wise in their own eyes, declaring evil good and good evil...

The Lord, high and lifted up in His Glory and righteousness, showing us our corporate wickedness...

A calling to speak out to a doomed people...

A promise of rescue but no faith to receive the promise...

The people to be rescued gloating over their enemies downfall...

A national disaster in return for their gloating...

Conspiracy theories distracting God's people from worship...

Spiritism, mysticism and mediums sought, though God's word is readily available...

People arrogantly declaring their rebuilding will be better than their past...

Just last week we saw Solomon telling us that nothing is new under the sun--ain't that the truth.  There is always a chance to repent, but without God calling the hearts of the people, we have about as much hope as Israel and Judah had.  It's a pattern that has happened over and over again.
Still, God promised that if His own people will seek His face and turn from our wicked ways, He will respond and heal all of us. 

Does He have your attention yet?

Isaiah 1-4, Pride or Praise?

Isaiah kicks off the books of the prophets with a great overview.  God lays out his arguments against Israel (and against us) in stark detail (vs 11 and 17--He even says it twice). 

"Human pride will be humbled,
    and human arrogance will be brought down.
Only the Lord will be exalted
    on that day of judgment."

We have focused on our beauty, our festivals, our celebrations as a tool to glorify ourselves.  Our pride has led us to exalt flash and glitter, with only a side glance toward either God or justice for others.  Emotion and salesmanship lead the day.  We worship ourselves rather than Him and we hardly even realize we've done it.  God's reaction is absolute nausea.

The shift can be so subtle.  We believe he deserves our best so we pursue excellence in order to bring Him a gift that is suitable for His grandeur--rather than realizing that the best we can give on our own is no better than filth in His eyes.  Like a child bringing mud-pies to their parents, the gift may be acceptable in childhood, when offered in humility as the best we can offer.  When, as mature believers, we continue to hold up mud-pies and cow-patties made from our own resources as a meal fitting for a King, His disgust shouldn't come as a surprise. 

We have nothing of value of our own to give Him.  To hone our skills for our glory is the essence of pride.  That pride means that we seek for ourselves the praise and adoration of others that rightfully belongs to Him.  This withholds from Him the only thing of value we have to give--our own adoring hearts and the adoration of others.  Not only that, our self-focus robs us of the compassion needed to desire justice for others, multiplying our wrongs toward a God who expects us to be fighting with Him rather than against Him. 

Does that mean we offer Him sloppiness or lack of preparation?  Absolutely not.  However, in our pursuit of excellence, He is our leader, companion and guide, not merely the object of our gifts.  We cannot give anything to Him that He hasn't crafted within us.  We create at his side, using His tools and the gifts of the Spirit.  Far too often, I have used the tools of the enemy, like perfectionism and a critical, argumentative spirit, to try to fashion for God something that only exalts myself.  He is patient with my weakness, but there's still nothing good about anything that is created using those tools. 

Lord, I choose a spirit of Praise.  Thank You for exposing my pride.  Forgive me for the foolish and self-centered things I have tried to give you.  Bring me back to true worship of You only. 

Thanks!

Nehemiah 13: Foreign wives...

 

This could be seen as a difficult passage.  The thought of all those wives being abandoned as a point of loyalty seems to go against all that God desires.  We know He hates divorce.  God stands up for the weak and victimized--especially women and children--and this passage stands in stark contrast to what we would normally expect, but there's more to this story than meets the eye. 

Had the women wanted to become a part of Israel, there were ceremonies to do so.  One noted example is Ruth, who was allowed and encouraged to marry Boaz even though she was from Moab (one of the nations mentioned in this passage).  In entreating Naomi to allow her to stay with her three times and vowing to take on Naomi's people and God, she was considered a Jewish proselyte.  It was rare but it could be done.  Any one of those women could have chosen to become an Israelite and there would have been no problem. 

Where the problem comes in is that these women willingly married Jewish men intentionally to drive a wedge between them and their nation and God.  The fact that the children couldn't even speak Hebrew, the language of the scripture, was further indication that these were not women who wanted to be a part of their husband's culture, but women who intended to keep their own gods, including detestable practices like child sacrifice and ritualistic prostitution. 


Mata Hari

A leading Levite giving the daughter of Tobiah to his son was pure treason. Tobiah fought for the downfall of Jerusalem throughout the entire 12 year rebuilding period to the point that the workers had to arm themselves during the work for their own protection.  This harkens back to the practices that Baalam recommended to Balak  to bring down the nation of Israel.  At Baalam's direction, Balak sent foreign women to tempt the Israelite men to idolatry as a strategy to get God to be mad at them and remove His blessing.  These marriages were not innocent.  They were a well-thought out infiltration with a long historical precedent.  It even involved the same nationality of people.  These marriages  were intentional acts of war.  In many ways, this is similar to the spy, Mata Hari, that was used in WWII to seduce Allied men, intending to steal their secrets.  The only difference is that these women were stealing the spiritual livelihood of the men of Israel from within their own homes.  This kind of treachery is far more diabolical. 

One of the wildest comparisons I've ever heard is between what Ezra the priest and Nehemiah the official did in response to finding out about the men of Judah marrying these foreign women. In response, Ezra tore his own robes. Nehemiah tore the robes of the offenders. It's a good balance. The priest went in repentance before God, identifying himself in intercession for the people of God. The government leader held people accountable for their treachery.