Scripture
The human mind is more deceitful than anything else. It is incurably bad. Who can understand it?
~Jeremiah 17:9, NET
Quote
The devil does not care if you are high on yourself or down on yourself; so long as you are preoccupied with yourself.
~Ya’akov
As someone said many years ago, the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. The human heart {soul or mind} is desperately sick and cunningly deceitful. There are millions living in absolute misery today simply because they followed their heart. The fall did more damage to us than we realize; it left us extremely vain and self-centered. It is not possible for us to focus on two things at the same time. When we are focused on ourself and our needs, we have no ability to focus on Christ and others. If we can’t focus on Christ, we cannot truly worship and if we can’t focus on others, we cannot be effective in ministry or evangelism. Once the devil gets us to focus on ourselves, he neutralizes us. We don’t worship or witness.
I’ve used the analogy of the coin a hundred times but my fear is that some are not really listening so I am going to repeat myself one more time. Just as a coin has a heads and tails, so pride has two sides. On the top side is arrogance which you will see in most highly successful people but on the bottom side is self-pity which you will see in all losers. The devil doesn’t care if you are full of conceit or self-pity: he wins either way because you are shackled to your pathetic self. Believe it or not, I have been accused of being arrogant. A family joined DBC several years ago {20 or more} and after the woman got to know me, she said to me–“You are nothing like what I imagined. I thought you were the most arrogant person I had every known but actually, you are the most pathetic.” I am kidding, she didn’t call me pathetic. What she came to realize is that I struggle with the bottom side as much or more than the top. I have a strong tendency to feel sorry for myself.
C.S. Lewis puts it in perspective in the GREAT DIVORCE. Frank is a self loathing character who is constantly feeling sorry for himself. This self-pity makes him a very needy creature; one that people do not admire nor want to spend time with. Every time Frank feels sorry for himself or calls attention to himself by his self-loathing behavior he shrinks in size. Think of it like this: at first Frank is 6 feet tall but by the end of the story he is 6 inches tall. He is so small that he goes unnoticed.
I wish it was not so but there is a constant battle with pride and vanity. Both are addicts when it comes to the self.
You know every now and then, preachers preach to themselves and this is one of those times. Hugh Fitzgerald was one of my accountability partners for years. Hugh was never afraid to tell me what he thought. I will never for get his coming up to me after a service and saying, “Well, I hope you know that you were preaching to yourself today.” I laughed and assured him that I was aware. I guess you could say, I blogged to myself today.
I got the root canal put off and I am hoping to get at least one of the concrete jobs done today. I actually prefer staying in my building and studying. I guess age has a lot to do with it. I hope you have a great day and thanks for reading the blog.