Monday, February 11, 2008
Feeding Your Addiction
1. Self-righteousness ought to be the number one enemy of the Christian. My greatest battle is against me - not you, not the world, not Phillip Pullman or any other Christian enemy du jour.Those are fantastic points! I want to rephrase them a bit:
2. We must abandon any kind of Christian movement or initiative which is predicated on a sense of moral superiority. This doesn't mean that we abandon theological positions or social/political views which we believe are true (and therefore, in a sense, superior to those we believe are false). But it does mean that we hold to these things knowing that we are always unable to live up to our highest ideals.
3. We treat self-righteousness as the addiction it is. Just as an addict is ever on the alert for the substance which will cause him to stumble, so we must be ever on the alert for that which will cause us to feel superior and/or produce an advantage to us at the disadvantage of another.
- The first call to a Christian is HUMILITY
- HUMILITY must be in foremost evidence in all that we do as Christians, because:
- We will ALWAYS have good reason to require HUMILITY of ourselves.
You know in many ways the Christian life is about goals and paths, not destinations. In the points that David makes we see that it matters much, much less WHAT we do as Christians and far more HOW we do it. Phrased another way our first goal is to be the person Christ intends us to be and being that person is reflected in how we approach pretty much any task, not the task itself.
I am continually intrigued by the cookie cutter approach to faith -- the kind of thing that offers "Ten Steps to XXX" or "A Plan For Your Life." Those things are always about what to do, they never ever hit at the real crux of the matter.
Dallas Willard is fond of discussing the Sermon On The Mount as Christ's instruction manual. There is some wisdom there. Consider some of the more well-known take-aways from that sermon.
- "Consider the lilies..." that entire little passage is about NOT WORRYING, you cannot "do" emotions like worry, they are a reflection of who you are.
- "...adultery in your heart," again, Christ illustrates that simply not committing adultery is not enough, he wants to change who we are enough that the desire is removed.
David starts his post talking about weight loss. Here is a hint from someone that has lost 100's of pounds. It's not about the diet, that amount of self-control simply does not exist. It is about changing who you are, particularly in relationship to food. It is not enough to control the desire, the desire must be gone, and you cannot remove it from yourself.
Why don't we all pray today that God remove the desire to sin from each of us. Watch how things will change.
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