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.
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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.
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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