C.S. Lewis explained it best. He said that pride is so dangerous because the person who is guilty of it will not see it in themselves, but knows where it is in everyone else.
Pride is the belief that you and your agenda is worth more on your own effort than on any other source. It's a harmful sin that bleeds a human dry of mercy, clear thinking and compassion, and replaces it with pure personal drive. Pride can keep a leader from stopping a war or it can keep a son from stopping a feud. It is a personal voice in your head that screams, "are you going to let him talk to you like that," or "Are you going to stop now that you've gone this far?" It's not as easy as a red devil on your back telling you lies, but it is a deep dyed tattoo on your soul. It can be painful to remove because the bearer needs to recognize it and turn it off immediately. Ultimately, pride is what keeps God from giving you any of his blessing because you are hellbent on getting it for yourself. Finally, when a life is spent on pride, it realizes that it turned down all of the Lord's promises for its own volition.
The anti pride is humility. A voice that says, "I am nothing without you," "I am only what the Lord tells me I am," and "I have earned nothing without your love." Our humility starts at the cross where we figure out that our value score is in the negatives and only made worth something through Jesus. When humility manifests itself through a life of a person, they stop caring what others think about them and freely live by the kindness given to them as a gift. It can be seen through the politician that apologizes for a mistake or the co-worker that can take criticism from anyone. Finally, the man of humility realizes that they have gained everything from the Lord and nothing was withheld from them.
The downfall is that pride hurts like hell. How dare our customers be unsatisfied with our work? I can't forgive my mom, she will never learn. I want the world to see how great I am. It almost feels like the people around us are chipping away our stony perceived self and revealing a insecure, faulty human being underneath. For that we must pray that God would love the human being underneath our prideful exterior so that we find more value in what God cherishes then what we want to be on our own. God be with you.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
You can dance if you want to (but we highly discourage it)
It's common knowledge that the youth leader of the group is considered the nerd, pencil pusher, or party pooper by some youth member. They might not say it out loud, but you are bound to get one youth thinking it. I fall neatly into the nerd category and my youth are nice enough to remind me of that fact. I think my incessant super hero references and super geek excitement is what tipped them off to that conclusion.
I know it's not popular to be a nerd, but nothing is more embarrassing than when a youth leader goes overboard with his personality and the youth group begins to disown him. One such example is at Pioneer Camp. This was our youth's first servant event. We were called to paint houses and enjoy camp life with other churches. To shorten a long story, a pastor asked me to dance like Forest Gump (when he danced like Elvis). I'm not sure how that conversation started between the pastor and I, but I can assure you that sleep deprivation played a role. After I did a poor version of the Forest Gump dance, it somehow evolved into amateur break dancing. Every youth dropped what they were doing to videotape me being the whitest creature on Earth. I go on the record as to saying that my break dance skills look like a paraplegic dog trying to chase its tail, while on a Merrie-go-round. To make a long story even shorter, I was asked to perform this at the worship service. The worship service??? Isn't that where God is serious? Being the firm Christian of morals and high standards, I caved in to the peer pressure like a cake in the rain. I couldn't understand why I was so nervous as the church service went on. Usually, I am so good at being a total fool for no reason. Something didn't feel right about this and after the Apostles Creed I was called up with another friend to do said dance. As I walked the aisle, the six girls I travelled with shrieked in horror as their youth leader was asked to break dance. I performed said dance and I resembled a beached whale caught in a tornado. All the other youth girls were videotaping it because they couldn't believe some monkey would dance like this. Kinda like putting your dog in people clothes--it was cute to them.
It wasn't until later did I learn how much I embarrassed my youth group. They may be young and too intolerable of nerdiness, but they do represent the church and its image. I had danced away that image and they had to bear that. What I thought was just a shot at me, turned into a humiliation for them. It wasn't fair to them.
I know two things about our image in Christ, 1) it doesn't matter what others think about you because there is nothing they can do about it. 2) We are the image of the invisible God and that means something to the world around us.
Break dancing in church is not a sin, but causing harm to the image of your church is. I recall one of the girls saying that a youth leader came up and said, "If its any consolation, I don't hold your youth leader's actions against your church." OUCH! You think I was caught resurrecting Nazism, but it was just a dance.
While I don't care what others think about me, I now know that I need to be more careful with how I portray Christ to others. My actions reflect so much now that I am partnered with Jesus.
I know it's not popular to be a nerd, but nothing is more embarrassing than when a youth leader goes overboard with his personality and the youth group begins to disown him. One such example is at Pioneer Camp. This was our youth's first servant event. We were called to paint houses and enjoy camp life with other churches. To shorten a long story, a pastor asked me to dance like Forest Gump (when he danced like Elvis). I'm not sure how that conversation started between the pastor and I, but I can assure you that sleep deprivation played a role. After I did a poor version of the Forest Gump dance, it somehow evolved into amateur break dancing. Every youth dropped what they were doing to videotape me being the whitest creature on Earth. I go on the record as to saying that my break dance skills look like a paraplegic dog trying to chase its tail, while on a Merrie-go-round. To make a long story even shorter, I was asked to perform this at the worship service. The worship service??? Isn't that where God is serious? Being the firm Christian of morals and high standards, I caved in to the peer pressure like a cake in the rain. I couldn't understand why I was so nervous as the church service went on. Usually, I am so good at being a total fool for no reason. Something didn't feel right about this and after the Apostles Creed I was called up with another friend to do said dance. As I walked the aisle, the six girls I travelled with shrieked in horror as their youth leader was asked to break dance. I performed said dance and I resembled a beached whale caught in a tornado. All the other youth girls were videotaping it because they couldn't believe some monkey would dance like this. Kinda like putting your dog in people clothes--it was cute to them.
It wasn't until later did I learn how much I embarrassed my youth group. They may be young and too intolerable of nerdiness, but they do represent the church and its image. I had danced away that image and they had to bear that. What I thought was just a shot at me, turned into a humiliation for them. It wasn't fair to them.
I know two things about our image in Christ, 1) it doesn't matter what others think about you because there is nothing they can do about it. 2) We are the image of the invisible God and that means something to the world around us.
Break dancing in church is not a sin, but causing harm to the image of your church is. I recall one of the girls saying that a youth leader came up and said, "If its any consolation, I don't hold your youth leader's actions against your church." OUCH! You think I was caught resurrecting Nazism, but it was just a dance.
While I don't care what others think about me, I now know that I need to be more careful with how I portray Christ to others. My actions reflect so much now that I am partnered with Jesus.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
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