Skip to main content

Peeling the Onion

Every layer of bias brings tears to my eyes.

There is nothing easy about having the Holy Spirit reveal the ways in which I think I am better than others. Neither is it comfortable to see how often I compare myself negatively to those around me. While the process of detaching those layers is painful, the end result is a newfound freedom. Only the Holy Spirit can work on me in this way.

The funny thing is, I once played the role of a certain big, green ogre in a musical. In that show, he tries to explain how complicated he is by describing himself as an onion. NOT that he's smelly, but you'll understand him better if you just accept that he has lots of layers. This was a way to explain away his behavior, and justify himself believing that he was better off living outside of community.

How good have we become at self-deception?

The most painful layer of "better than-ism" exposed last week in the preaching was in regards to God, Himself. Sure, I thought of how I might judge others, and how much I criticize myself, but the real issue became progressively clearer. This comes down to the double-edged sword of God's Word piercing my thoughts.

1) Why do I believe I'm better than others when I place my complete trust in the work of Jesus AND I know that everyone else must do the same?
2) Why do beat myself down for being less than others when I know that I am fearfully and wonderfully made and so is every other human?

Now the tears turn from sadness to joy. My rebellion in this area has been exposed by the Gospel and I gleefully repent from that line of thinking. I must listen to the Holy Spirit when encountering others, live by the Law of Love, and protect my heart from meditating on "better than-isms" and "lesser than-isms" by taking every thought captive to obey Christ.

What a joy it is to have those layers removed by my Lord and Savior.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In the Moment

I need times of transition. This is something that I have discovered about myself and my daily life. I have a difficult time jumping from one thing to the next, especially if I have spent a significant amount of time dedicated to a single focus. To contextualize what I am talking about let me say that on any given day I come up with a new list of three things to accomplish and I add these to my "daily six list." Those six are the things that I have prayerfully decided upon in order to keep myself accountable and effective in my calling and purpose. Applying both of those lists to my routine has taken a lot of time and discipline to include as an every day reality, but to talk more about that would be a blog of a different color. I usually don't need a transition between each of those nine daily items as they are similar in focus and the mental/spiritual/emotional preparation is the same. However, when I go home I need a time of transition to adjust my focus so that I ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Simple Invitation to Prayer

"What has helped me?" Our commitment as a church is to advance the Gospel as a Kingdom family. As we drill down on advancing through small steps and simple invitations, Lumumba was preaching out of Revelation and asked the question, "What has helped me in sharing the word of my testimony?" I was particularly caught by his first point of prayer. Jesus taught us to pray. Prayer is unique to humankind and a primary indicator of the faithfulness of God's people. God hears every prayer. It is transformational, impactful, good for the soul, empowered by the Spirit, and necessary for our intimate relationship with the Creator of the universe. Yet we often treat it as a daily chore. When prayer becomes an after thought for me I begin to forget who I am in Christ, that I have been called and sent by God, and what I have been sent to do. When my prayer life is weak it becomes a laundry list of what I hope God will do for me instead of remembering who He is and lis...
Post a Comment
Read more

Endurance and Encouragement?

 Romans 15:5-6 May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus,   that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The endurance of welcoming others in the midst of differing convictions can encourage the weak by walking together in full faith and the strong in demonstrating meekness. This harmony of relationship doubles as a song of praise, lifted in corporate worship. The Father is glorified in unlikely friendships, called and built together through the unique work of the Son, and operating in the unity of the Spirit. This is not possible apart from the body, the church, as it is built by God. As a light, we shoulder the responsibility of how we shine. In the darkest of times, every one of us is hoping to find the right way forward. It can be easy to blind someone with a flashlight but that only makes it difficult to see. It is better to walk togethe...
Post a Comment
Read more