Church

When Pride Meets Love

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Pride is an interesting word. You can’t say pride without saying I and without saying ride. We all ride pride sometimes through the streets of life. Pride is odd in that it can be a positive word conveying love or admiration, or it can be a distasteful word conveying egotism, vanity, rebellion, and sin.  

In pride, I am the object of my faith. Pride elevates me to a position that rightfully belongs to God. Pride focuses on my needs and selfishly views God and others as existing to serve me. Pride is confusing; it shuffles my perspective and causes me to embrace rational lies. I see my arrogance as confidence. My superiority expresses itself in cynical humor. The ride of pride leads me to a fictional world where I am all knowing and everyone around me is trapped in foolishness. Pride draws me in with that new car smell and soft ride. Pride drives fast and reckless; the law does not apply when I grip the wheel of pride. But in the end, the ride of pride leaves nothing more than a mangled mess of broken dreams, manipulated relationships, and a cold soul. 

 The Bible teaches, “Pride comes before destruction, and an arrogant spirit before a fall (Proverbs 16:18).” Three times in Scripture we are reminded that “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (Proverbs 3:34, James 4:6, I Peter 5:5). By contrast, “Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not conceited. . . (I Corinthians 13:4).” Pride is to sin what love is to grace.  

The ringing of Calvary’s hammer is a collision of pride and love. The cross is necessary because of my pride, but it also necessary because of God’s love. The cross is a clumsy display of my hideous pride and a graceful display of God’s forgiving grace. On the cross, love is pierced by pride and grace is crowned by evil. On the cross pride drains the veins of love: drop by drop pride’s antidote puddles below. When His head bowed in death, pride raised his head in victory. But when the earth stood still and the tomb stood opened, it was pride that had died and love that was alive. 

The antidote to pride is the cross. When I look upon the humility and love of the cross, I see the magnificence of His love for me and I have nothing left in which to boast. From the cross the purity of His righteousness shines into the corners of my heart exposing the darkness of my sin and contempt is poured on my pride. From the cross the glories of money, power, and fame lose their allure and my richest gain I count but lost. At the cross, my broken dreams, my manipulated relationships, my cold soul collide with love. When my pride surveys His love, I bow beneath the cross, my faith is transferred from me to Him, and the drops of grace cleanse me and make me fully whole. At the cross, pride dies and love comes alive. 

Lash Banks is Lead Pastor at Murphy Road Baptist Church (murphychurch.com).  For more on this subject you can listen to Lash’s sermon When Pride Meets Love http://www.buzzsprout.com/17504/151296-faces-when-pride-meets-love  

Inspired by Isaac Watts’ great hymn When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

5 Things to Do When Criticized

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5 Things to Do When Criticized.

If you want to be a criticized person all you have to do is do something. The truth is there will always be those vision vandals, managers of the mundane, champions of the Eeyore fan-club that like to drain your enthusiasm and criticize your actions. So how do you react when criticized? Here are five steps to handling criticism well.  Okay, maybe not well, but at least a bit better. . . 

1. Consider the Source—It may be this is all you need to do.  If the source is way off base, then move on and don’t worry about it.  But sometimes, the source of criticism has merit and the criticism isn’t meant to be vindictive but constructive.  Sometimes the critic has a sincere desire to help.

2. Consider the Criticism—Criticism always stings.  But beyond the sting, there is often some truth that may help you to do better in the future.   In most cases, criticism requires some type of response.  Often all people want is to be heard.

3. Check your Heart—Pray about it! Perhaps some apathy, anger or attitude have taken up residence within you. The Lord may show that sin has crept in and the criticism can be God’s tool to renew your heart and help you to do better in the future.

4. Correct as Led—Having considered the matter and prayed about it correct as wisdom and the Holy Spirit lead you. It may be you change nothing, or God may use the criticism to take you to a whole new level.

5. Continue in Ministry—Whatever happens, do not quit honoring and serving God. “Jesus said you are blessed when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say everykind of evil about you because of Me (Matthew 5:11).” There’s no quitting in ministry.

There will always be people who don’t understand you. If you spend all of your life trying to live up to everyone’s expectations, you are going to be exhausted. Do one thing and do it really well: honor God. In every word, action, attitude, honor Him.  Collisions 3:17— And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

For more thoughts on this listen to the Enjoying the Journey podcast:
http://www.buzzsprout.com/17504/147924-faces-enjoy-the-journey

No Other Gospel

Christ has rescued us from the world by giving Himself for our sins according to the will of God.  Those who repent of sin and believe in Christ, receive the grace and peace of God and live for His glory forever and ever.  This is the heart of the true gospel that Paul  describes in Galatians 1:3-5:

3 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father. 5 To whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

The gospel of Christ is the most uniting force on earth because it answers our universal problem of sin and our most basic need of forgiveness.  The gospel empowers me to live a life of true significance where success is measured by eternal rather than earthly means.  The gospel causes me to lose control and discover the joy of life beyond the box.  It demands that I take the risk of faith and get beyond my sanitized world of control and power.  The gospel frees me from the prison of self.  To be God’s means that I no longer have to spend all of my energies trying to be God.   “I do because I am not in order to be.”  I pursue holiness because I am God’s child rather than attempting to be God’s child through my holiness.

 In Galatians 1:6-7, Paul dropped his jaw in amazement that those who have experienced the liberating power of the gospel, abandon freedom in favor of enslavement to selfishness and pride.  Paul wrote:

I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from Him who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — 7 not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are troubling you and want to change the good news about the Messiah.

False gospels are subtle, because they wear Christ’s robes while stripping His message, they speak Christ’s language without God’s dictionary, embrace Christ’s love while ignoring His holiness, and desire the benefits of the cross but not the savior.

In Paul’s day, the Judaizers were luring the young, Gentile Christians of Galatia to a false gospel that taught Jesus + Judaism = Salvation.   Today, the equations of apostasy may read like this:

  • Gospel of Friendship–Church Activities + Friends = Community
  • Gospel of Accommodation–Your goodness + Jesus’ love = Success
  • Gospel of Legalism–Jesus + Rules = Control
  • Gospel of Self–Jesus + Opportunity = Admiration
  • Gospel of Exhaustion–Pleasing People + Doing Good = God’s Love

Paul’s response to the false gospel was, to say the least, rather firm in Galatians 1:8 he wrote:

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than what we have preached to you, a curse be on him!

Now, just in case you missed it or thought maybe Paul was just blowing off some steam.  Paul and, if you have a high view of Scripture, the Holy Spirit say it again in verse 9:

9 As we have said before, I now say again: If anyone preaches to you a gospel contrary to what you received, a curse be on him!

False Gospels are such a BIG deal that they make Paul curse!  In Greek, the word translate “curse” is anathema.  The root idea is that false gospels should be banned, excommunicated, shunned to extinction.  What gets really scary is that if we plunge into our souls there are times when all of us are tempted to settle for a message that only resembles the true gospel.  It is often comfortable, encouraging, self-empowering, containable, and rewarding to listen to or communicate.  False gospels can win friends, draw crowds, increase budgets, provide comfort, build careers, and elicit cheers.  But, in the end, they fail to satisfy, fall short of grace, and enslave you into a prison of works producing a heritage of pride of selfishness.

So Paul brings us to the eternal conclusion in verse 10:

For am I now trying to win the favor of people, or God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a slave of Christ.

Christ has rescued us from the world by giving Himself for our sins according to the will of God.  Those who repent of sin and believe in Christ receive the grace and peace of God and live for His glory forever and ever.

Let us shun to extinction any other gospel.