today's navlist devotional

This is today's devotional from http://www.navlists.org/holiness/
Kinda ties in with our additudes about grace I shared in my blog yesterday...

Moral Superiority

Today's Scripture: Nehemiah 1:6

"We have sinned against you. Even I and my father's house have sinned."

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Of all our subtle, "acceptable" sins, pride of moral superiority may be the most common, second only to the sin of ungodliness. Although it's so prevalent, it's difficult to recognize because we all practice it to some degree. In fact, we seem to get a perverse enjoyment out of discussing how awful society around us is becoming. When we do that, we're guilty of the pride of moral superiority.

How, then, can we guard against this sin of self-righteousness? First, by seeking an attitude of humility. If we're morally upright, it's only because God's grace has prevailed in us. No one is morally upright by nature. Rather, we all have to say with David, "surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me" (Psalm 51:5, NIV). We ought to feel deeply grateful that God by his grace has kept us from, or perhaps rescued us from, the lifestyle of those who practice the flagrant sins we condemn.

We can also identify ourselves before God with the sinful society we live in. Ezra the scribe was a godly man who lived an exemplary life. Yet when he became aware of a deep sin among the people, he identified himself with it, though he himself was not guilty. Consider his prayer: "o my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens" (Ezra 9:6). He included himself in this confession of guilt. As we in our day see the increasing moral degradation of our society, we need to adopt Ezra's attitude. (Excerpt taken from Respectable Sins)

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The text for this devotional comes from the NavPress devotional book Holiness Day by Day by Jerry Bridges

Does making others feel worse make you feel better?

This morning I had a small car accident, rear-ended a small VW as it started to make a right turn. As I was checking to my left to see if there were any cars coming, he suddenly braked and on the rain-slicked road I couldn't quite stop in time. Needless to say I wasn't pleased with myself, started kicking myself for being so careless. As we got out of the cars to examine the damage, I was relieved to see only our licence plates were slightly bent and his licence plate frame was cracked.

I quickly took responsibility for the accident, and the young fellow who was driving seemed to be calm at first. A lady passenger also got out of the car, who quickly started to accuse me of being an incompenent driver. I apologized again, but the lady said the apology doesn't cut it, and just kept on ranting about my carelessness and suggested that if I don't know how to drive I should restrict my travelling to public transit. I apologized again, clearly taking the blame, but she just continued digging into me, with a mission to make me feel worse than I already did.

Once the lady had calmed down, the driver and I had a civilized conversation, I agreed to compensate for the damage as it was so minor (the licence plate frame costs about 200kr, about $20), I offered 500kr but then he started to demand much more. I said if he values the damage higher, we'll run it through insurance. He quickly changed his mind and accepted the 500 since it was more profitable than running such a small thing through insurance.

The fellow's desire to pocket some extra money I can understand (he probably won't bother fixing it and just keep the cash). The ranting lady was a bit more difficult to comprehend. What was it that triggered her response, and why didn't she calm down after I took responsibility? Why was it so important to her to make me feel worse, even after I apologised?

I'm guessing a lack of grace in her life, perhaps low self esteem. In fact I've seen many people act this way (sometimes even myself), some in a more subtle way than others. We tend to evaluate our self worth by deeds and actions, comparing them to the actions of others. What exactly is the standard we measure ourselves by? Is our identity based on the need to be better than others? Does this motivate us to improve ourselves, or does it motivate us to disprove others to make us feel better than them?

Grace is such an amazing thing. To be accepted just as you are, with all the faults, mistakes, blemishes and screw-ups in our lives. I really love the idea of grace, because I've been pretty good at messing things up in my life. But on many occasions I've become hesitant in admiting my faults to others, fearing responses that come from something other than grace. Even this morning, for a moment I thought about blaming them for the accident, for braking suddenly after they had entered the intersection. I could have tried to make them feel bad, and for a fleeting moment I might have felt better, more justified, more in control.

What if there was no measuring stick that compares us to others? What if we would accept and forgive others just as they are? I'm not talking about ignoring resposibility, but to allow others to fail and recieve our grace without any of our strings attached. Grace has two parts, to receive it you need to admit your failings and ask for forgiveness. This takes courage, especially when you don't know what response may come from others.

God's grace is the most amazing, we need not fear harsh words or actions when we are honest about ourselves. But if we try to justify ourselves, blame others for causing our "accidents" grace just does not come. We need to remove the "if you didn't" or "if you weren't" from our vocabulary and acknowledge our failings.

The blaming game never makes anyone feel better. I could blame the rain, slippery road, the other driver, or the car itself for the accident. I could blame my parents, my friends, my school, my church for the way my life has gone and how I behave. Yes, each factor has it's effect in producing the result, but this does not resolve the situation. At the end of the day we ourselves have failed and we are the ones who need to receive grace.

Yes, we all need grace.

got the "happy face" blues...

I've been reading "Blue Like Jazz", a book written by Donald Miller. He writes that he doesn't like jazz music because it doesn't resolve. That might be true, but personally I enjoy listening to jazz and blues music, perhaps it is because there's so much unresolved within me, or maybe not I really don't know. Music however isn't the topic of the book, it's more about how we view God, ourselves and others, as well as challenging some of the stereotypes that have formed our christian views and identity. And he get's to the core issue of our existance, the key of what love is and how we use it and respond to it.

As I read the last chapter, he presents problem of a Christian culture that thinks of love as a commodity. We use love like money, but it doesn't work like money. Our love is conditional, not unconditional as we so often we claim it is. We expect something in return and when we don't receive it we feel cheated, as if we "didn't get what we paid for". The reality is that when we barter with love we all loose. Christ gave an example of unconditional love which very few christians come even close to.

With our "unconditional love" we try to impliment or persuade change in other people's lives. We expect them to conform to our ideals of how a christian should behave, and when they don't respond to our expectations in our timeframe, we tend to withhold our "unconditional love" from them. Our "love" changes with the response we receive. Is this really unconditional?

There was a time I struggled to understand why it's not ok for a christian to be sad, or heaven forbid depressed. A church I attended many years ago, had the understanding the Christian life should be a celebration, and there was very little room for sadness or sorrow. It was always an easy fix, just praise our loving God, sing and dance in His presence regardless of how you feel. "It will all get better, the problems will dissapear". What in fact was happening was that the underlying issue of one's struggle or sadness was swept under the carpet of what i now call "praise theology".

There is alot of truth to worshiping God and finding peace in the midst of turmoil, however the form of worship may not always be as we tend to define it. We seem to encourage ourselves and others to look for an escape, to "fake our feelings" denying the underlying cause of one's sadness or depression rather than dealing with the root issue. The result is that we place expectations on others and create masks that fill other's expectations. Sorry, but I can't remain in an enviroment that isn't genuine. It's so sad to see those who "happy face" their way through friendships, church and life filling expectations rather than finding genuine relationships, genuine people with genuine hearts.

How many people have we alienated with our "conditions", the very same people our compassionate God is reaching out to with true unconditional love.. We accept people when they are happy, and have a tendency to draw away from people who are sad. The Bible says there is a time to rejoice and a time to weep, a time to dance and a time to mourn, and that we should weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn. I believe there are times we desperately NEED to be sad, to deny this is to deny God the opportunity to work something good through our sadness. We do a disservice to ourselves and others by not acknowledging that Christ as well as our brothers and sisters are with us through our deepest despair, not only when we "put on our happy face".

Oh, the masks we hide behind when we fear to reveal our sadness or despair. Unfortunately in many circles these masks are rightfully needed, so long as people continue to barter with a selfish commodity we like to call love. I pray there would be more who would grasp a fraction of what unconditional love really is.