The first message I ever preached outside of a class was in chapel at Nyack College. I preached about the balance between confidence and humility. I regret to say that about 5 years later my heart still hasn't found the stability on that balance beam. Where is the balance between unwrapping a spiritual gift with boldness, and finding a humility that lands you flat on your face in front of a Holy God? How is that accomplished when people don't have the ability to see past a man, and end up showering him with a false success? Where is the balance between, fighting to conquer a sin, and then when it is conquered giving all the credit and glory to Christ who gave you the strength to conquer it in the first place? How do you have integrity without pride? How do you have Christlike character and humility at the same time? In my ignorance and weakness I have said to myself, "well maybe I allow this thorn to stay in my side so that I can know I am nothing without Christ." I'm such an idiot sometimes. Now pride haunts my soul on one side of the enemy lines and as I cross over into friendly territory I cross into a world of every other sin. A word filled explanation is easy to shower on these questions. But a heart filled explanation seems extinct. Its seems the balance is to be Blameless and Broken. But I for one am stuck in prideful and sinful. Life sucks, good thing I got a Savior.
3 comments:
Stuck in the vortex between Egpyt and the Promise; "Blameless and Broken"
Good thing we've got a Savior!
I'm gonna steal you from your boo!
I know this was written almost a year ago, and I'm not sure how much has changed in that past year, but I'll say this anyway:
God doesn't want us to be stuck in our pride and shame. And yea, it extremely easy to say it and SO difficult to actually believe it and do it, but it's not us who is doing anything. It's the power of Christ in us that can change us. Romans 6:1 says 'should we go on sinning that grace may abound? By no means!' We can't just think that we can keep living in our sinful ways and keep running back to Christ saying that we're sorry. We need to repent of our sins, truly turning away from them, and run to Christ. If we've truly been born again, we are new creations--the old has passed. Our old lives are gone-they're dead. No more of our worldly desires and habits and dreams. It need to be all for Christ and His glory.
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