12.) Run with horses?


Chapter.12
Have you ever just listened to how people crave to talk about themselves? And if not about themselves then just to talk. No matter how personal or unique your sharing might be, they are only waiting to share something similar. If they can possibly  hold back it won’t be for long so you better get in what you want to say when you get the chance. Empathy may appear altruistic but it doesn’t last. These inclinations of self-centeredness are not unique personality traits of certain individuals. We are all desperately groping to find a loving response to fulfill our heart expressions.

    Imagine of knight fighting dragon
“…and those who overcame him did so “because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even unto death”(Rev.12:9, 9:11/Eph.6:12).
YOU MUST FIGHT THE MONSTER EGO WHO BELONGS TO AND IS TRAINED BY SATAN
 
At the outset self-pity seems like a rather innocent feeling. It is something you deserve for having to face such a cruel and ruthless world all by yourself. No one understands how bad you got it. You have a right to be miserable because of all that has befallen you. If only this and that would happen then you’d be different. There is a twisted kind of comfort that comes fro licking your wounds. 
Before my mother died of intestinal cancer she told me that it felt like there was a monster gnawing away within her bones. It was unbelievable to watch her rapid deterioration. Over just four weeks she went from a strong heavy-set woman to a weak and feeble body of bones. Do you realize that someone who has cancer is being eaten alive from within?! Being blind to your sin nature is like being eaten alive from within. Day by day your short time is ticking off.
The sand in the hour glass is quickly running out and what do you have to show from your battle with sin? You can spend days, then weeks, then months, then years waiting for that something “special” to quench your longing.
How long have you already waited for God to do “something special” in your life to make you change your ways?! It has never come, and it never will! All the while Satan is laughing because your time is quickly running out! The “something special” is found in the obedience of your will to respond to Gods revelation BY FAITH.
 Sin is like a vice squeezing out the vigor of your  body. The longer you resist God and the older you get the less hope there is that you will ever be saved (Gen.6:3/Heb.3:7). Sin instills a lethargic attitude in your very metabolism so you simply do not have the energy to exert true repentance (Heb.12:17/3:13). The claws of routine boredom keep you from realizing the consequences of time passed and never able to be recaptured. The curse of death is at work to deteriorate the cells in your body. You can’t stop it. Decay is running its course. When the last particles of hope seep out of your life the door of judgment will horribly slam shut on your opportunity for salvation (2Thess.2:10-11)!

Satan insinuated to Eve that something was being kept back from her when God told her not to eat the apple.  Satan convinced her that there was “something special” for her that God was holding back. This lie was enough to open the floodgates for self-pity.
Self-pity is the defiant accusation that there is something more for you than what the Word of God has already revealed. She wanted something, anything, for herself. The deified self twists reality so as to make itself out to be the center of God’s focus. Eve “swelled up” with the thinking that she was the center of God’s creation therefore she should know everything. It always amazes me how people will say “Well I don’t know everything” but yet when I try to teach them about true salvation they just know it isn’t right. So they must know everything about God because you can’t tell them anything!
People would never try to tell a rocket scientist how a rocket operates in an atmosphere of non-gravity. Yet they do not hesitate to say how a “christian” behaves on this earth. They don’t “know everything” until it comes to the reasons for their sin and rebellion to God. God did not make the world for man. He made the world to share with man.
Spiritual pride is always a “delight to the eyes” and “desirable to make one wise” (Gen.3:5-6). When you yield to your nature you are insinuating that God’s Word is a lie and your feelings are the truth! You are pitting the thoughts of your adamic nature against the promises of God (Is.55:10/Jn.10:10/1Pt.1:8).
One time when I was preaching by a German subway station there was this bum who was utterly disgusting. The stench of urine and booze saturated his filthy clothes. He was barely conscious. As we walked by I was ashamed to see my response. I didn’t even want to look at him. I had to force myself to stop and help this guy. This guy was not a thing, like a trash can, an old shoe or a dog. Here was a victim of loneliness and self-pity. Here was a victim of Satan’s power. It just hit me, like a slap in the face, that there was a much bigger picture of reality than my puny self-centered perspective. What could I possibly be dealing with that could compare to what this guy must face every day?!
Who says you’ve got a right to feel sorry for yourself? People talk on and on about their “needs”. Who defines what you need? Do you? God is not about caring to the whims of your self-centered flesh. Self-life insulates you from the hard core realities of life.
You think God revolves His world around you. In some bizarre way you actually think God is obligated to make your self-centered life happy! Pride tells you that you deserve much better. As if you have some kind of “divine right” to a better life out there someplace that is being held back from you. Just like Eve. If you really want to talk about what you deserve in God’s eyes then we must talk about the lake of fire. This is what such an attitude deserves (and will get).n other words, you have become the “Creator” and God has become someone whom you have created.
If you say, “My moods and feelings shall determine my disposition” then you are surrendering to the enemy. As long as you insist that you deserve happiness, within the framework of your “I am” autonomy, then your pride will pull you deeper and deeper into despair13. You can walk around, sucking on your pacifier and throwing your teddy bear against the wall as long as you want but you will never manipulate God to react to your ways. You can sulk in your miserable depression until the day you die and God will never force you to change.
God says “The just man shall live by faith(Rom.1:17). Your whining self-pity does not provoke God to mercy but to wrath. He has paid the ultimate high-price of the death of His only begotten Son. You insist that He is holding something back from you when He has given everything He could for you (Rom.8:32)!!! It’s not up to Him to do anything more. It’s up to you to believe there is nothing more! God showed what He thinks of your self-pity when He smote Jesus, Who bore that nature of self-pity and depression, with His wrath. While you are waiting for God to cater to your self-pity God is waiting for you to learn to “run with horses” (Jer.12:1-5).
Think about it. Do you want to obey His revelation by faith, and so act accordingly, or live in the moods and feelings of a hell-bound beast? The only other “special thing” that you can keep hoping to receive from God is His wrath (Jn.3:36). It is a lie to think that God has mercy on your SIN. He despises your beast within. His mercy is only offered to anyone who turns away from their self. So the next time you wonder whether God is hearing your “prayers” just look at what God did to Jesus when He bore those exact self-centered feelings on the cross (Is.53/1Ps.2:24).
All your excuses for self-pity, self-life, loneliness and pride incurred not mercy but WRATH! If you want to know His mercy then refuse to feel sorry for yourself and seize your will in obedience to FAITH in His finished work(Jn.6:27).
At your next pity-party, when you are whining over whether  God really loves you or not, just consider the Son of God crucified, nailed to the cross and realize that, if the time was here, you’d be smitten dead for your persistent defiance of His revelation (Jn.3:36). There are billions of selfish scumbags begging God to do something “special” to make their miserable lives happy. His answer to these “prayers it the “special” work that has already been done 2000 years ago. The issue is your obedience not His mercy.

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