Is pride a sin you struggle with? Most of us try our best to steer clear of the most commonly understood definition of pride—believing ourselves to be better or more worthy than others. But in a devotional at Lutheran Hour Ministries, Meron Tekle Berhan cautions Christians about a more sinister form of pride: the belief that we can do something to earn or complete our own salvation.
In addition to duping us into thinking we’re better than other people, pride can also drive a deadly wedge between God and us. How? Though we may acknowledge that God, through the saving work of Christ Jesus, is willing to forgive all our sins, pride can deceive us into thinking that somehow that doesn’t really mean our sins.
As a consequence, some people mistakenly feel that though God offers complete liberation from every sin through Christ’s work on the cross, this offer must somehow, some way, be added to by them completing the deal — i.e. doing something on their own that puts the finishing touch on God’s work for their salvation….
Unfortunately, there are many who are too proud to accept that their sins, though grievous, are as damnable — and forgivable — as the next person’s. No more, no less. Therefore, being cleansed of those sins requires one thing: faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of the world.
Read the full devotional at Lutheran Hour Ministries.
Have you ever found yourself too proud to admit that you couldn’t make up for your own sins? What happens when we do good works in the hope or belief that those good works, and not Jesus’ grace, will seal our salvation?
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“The greatest love a person can show is to die for his friends.” John 15:13
I like John most for the way he loved Jesus. His relationship with Jesus was, . . . simple. To John, Jesus was a good friend with a good heart and a good idea . . .
One gets the impression that to John, Jesus was above all a loyal companion. Messiah? Yes. Son of God? Indeed. Miracle worker? That, too. But more than anything . . . Jesus was a friend.
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I had the privilege of being taught Theology by an amazing Pastor/Teacher during my junior high years. Everything he taught challenged me on a consistent basis and shaped the way I approach the Bible now, all these years later.
He taught me many things about the Kings of the Old Testament and about the writings of Paul. I learned to memorize verse after verse in his class (and not just in English but in Spanish as well!). He would Sword Drill my class for fun every Friday (we’d win candy!) yet expect us to take our time in his class very seriously – as seen by the tests he gave.He was serious about not only learning Scripture but applying it as well.
I could tell you a hundred lessons I learned in his class that still speak to me today but there is one lesson I think of daily.
There is one lesson that is never far from my thoughts or my heart. One lesson that I’ve scribbled on each of my Bibles and in countless notebooks; one lesson that has knocked me right in the heart as he spoke the words:
“God has no grandchildren.”
He spoke those words to a class full of teenagers and I sat wide-eyed as he said, “You won’t get to heaven just because your parents believe in Christ. Or your boyfriend or girlfriend does. Or because your teachers test you on Him. You won’t spend eternity with Christ because your best friend worshiped Him here on earth. You’ve got to decide for yourself…”
God has no grandchildren? What in the world? My junior high self had never thought of things like that. I’d never considered the idea of there being no in between.
He didn’t speak those words with the purpose of evoking fear in our hearts; he spoke them with compassion. He spoke them like a man who had seen too many teens think they could coast by on the beliefs of others without really knowing Christ for themselves…
Those words changed my life. I was certainly saved at that point but it was those words that begged me to get to know Christ for myself. On my own. To find Him true.
And I have.
This is a message that shouldn’t be lost on the youth around us. We need to speak these words to them – not for the sake of fear but for the sake of kindness. We’ve got to speak the truth and invite them to get to know Christ for themselves.
We serve a God we can know!
God may not have grandchildren but He does have sons and daughters whom He loves enough…whom He ransomed by the blood of His Son…whom He calls His own…whom He is coming for.
“…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
*Photo Credit, sxc.hu
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We've done this Small Thing before and I want to do it again because it feels so good!
Today we're gonna get free, baby!
Whatcha got laying around your house that is pulling you down? A pile of laundry? A stack of mail? A bunch of bills? A mountain of dishes?
Today's Small Thing is to get free of ONE PILE. It can be a pile of anything, you name it. Clutter, receipts, clothes, newspapers, office papers, toys....it doesn't matter.
You only have to do ONE pile. Getting rid of one pile of something is enough to tell procrastination that you are getting FREE! So put it away, organize it, throw it, DEAL WITH IT!
Tell it you're through being shackled to it!
Then you oughta turn this song up and do a freedom dance. Oh, yeah!
BONUS POINTS: 20 for freedom dancing afterward! Get up and do a little praisin!
50 max.
Then tell us: what did you get free of today? Let us give you a Woo Hoo!
Been somewhat tired lately. My little one is recovering from Strep and frankly...I'm feeling a little 'draggy' too.
EN - As always, click on the images to go to the originals!
ES - Como siempre, clickeen en las imágenes para ver los originales!
Related posts:
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(Author: John Piper)
I hope that he and you and I shall all so live, as to be missed a little when we are gone. But the Lord standeth not in need of sinful man. And he sometimes takes away his most faithful and honoured ministers in the midst of their usefulness, perhaps [for this reason] among others, that he may show us he can do without them. . . . Blessed is the servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing, with his loins girded up, and his lamp burning. (p. 280)
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Read the entire devotional at RBC.org.We are not saved only to be instruments for God, but to be His sons and daughters. He does not turn us into spiritual agents but into spiritual messengers, and the message must be a part of us. The Son of God was His own message— “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” ( John 6:63 ). As His disciples, our lives must be a holy example of the reality of our message. Even the natural heart of the unsaved will serve if called upon to do so, but it takes a heart broken by conviction of sin, baptized by the Holy Spirit, and crushed into submission to God’s purpose to make a person’s life a holy example of God’s message.
There is a difference between giving a testimony and preaching. A preacher is someone who has received the call of God and is determined to use all his energy to proclaim God’s truth. God takes us beyond our own aspirations and ideas for our lives, and molds and shapes us for His purpose, just as He worked in the disciples’ lives after Pentecost. The purpose of Pentecost was not to teach the disciples something, but to make them the incarnation of what they preached so that they would literally become God’s message in the flesh. “. . . you shall be witnesses to Me . . .” ( Acts 1:8 ).
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Beautiful One, many of us have heard the words made famous by Doris Day, "Whatever will be,
will be." Maybe you've spoken them yourself as if to tell yourself to accept things that are out of our control. However, may I suggest that we don't settle in life for such a fate and, instead, focus on what truly determines our outcome? . . that whatever God says IS, will be.
imagine things being any different then our circumstances dictate.
Beautiful One, may I encourage you with this: Hard times, long battles and, yes, even doubt and fear have a purpose.
When we are spiritually and emotionally empty and have nothing left inside, that is when God does some of his best work. Sometimes in order for us to truly live, we have to die to everything we have known or experienced up to that point.
One of my favorite stories in the Bible is of Joseph (starting in Genesis 37). God bestowed something special on him from the very beginning. Some Bible scholars say Joseph was arrogant and showed off to his brothers. He loved parading around in a coat of many colors that his father, Jacob, presented only to him and not to any other of Joseph's siblings. At such a young age, it isn't too surprising that Joseph did not handle the special gift in a gracious manner.
But, what is surprising, is that the brothers who were supposed to have his back are the very ones who stabbed it! Joseph's jealous siblings threw him in a pit, sold him into slavery, lied about his fate to Jacob, and then acted as if nothing had happened. When reading what Joseph went through, one wonders why, if God had given him a gift and purpose, did this young man have to experience such injustice? Joseph was taken to Egypt, and suffered for years and ended up in prison despite being an innocent man.
colors on and life is grand, but real faith comes when you are
sitting alone in the darkness questioning everything you believe in.
Sitting behind bars for thirteen years he knew that God loved him, but he probably wondered why he was unjustly imprisoned. Joseph had plenty of time to ponder the betrayal of his brothers and his dreary existence.How hard that must have been. No matter how much we want to glorify the people in the Bible, they were not super human. they were just like you and me.
There comes a point in our lives when we just accept the premise of whatever will be, will be. Sometimes that is all we can do to reconcile difficult times. It sounds good at the time because it helps us cope for the moment. But thank God, we are loved by
a God who just wont settle on our behalf and who offers us more than a quick and temporary fix'.
Joseph was given a dream, and by our great God, it was going to come to pass!
The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and no matter how many of them are hard and painful, just as in Josephs case, God will use every single one of them for something good.
Most of us know how Joseph's story ends. But, do we really know his story? Who would've thought that the moment Joe's brothers threw him in that pit, that they actually tossed him into his destiny? Who would've thought that after Portiphar's wife lied about him and he got thrown into a prison cell, that he was actually being catapulted into the presence of royalty? Who would've thought that being buried underground for years in darkness, that in one day, God would bring him up and out, and shine the spotlight on him?
It's no wonder that when Joseph was seated next to the king, and came face to face with his offenders, that he forgave them. Because when we know that all that we've been through had a purpose, and that God is with us, no matter what happened to us along our way, we like Joseph can let go of all that has kept us bound. Only when we know that God will repay us, can we stop making others pay.
God came through for Joesph, and surely, He will do it for us too. When times of darkness fall upon us, God is there to remind us that whatever He said will be, IS!
Beautiful One, just believe in whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. Because this will get you through to the other side. (Philippians 4:8 NASB)
