What's Wrong with Me??

I don’t know about you, but I want to be God.  I’ve always wanted to be God, ever since I was a baby.  I want things my way, in my timeframe, with everything just the way I imagined it.

And I’m not the first creature to feel that way.  Creatures have been saying that since before the foundations of the World.  One in particular probably comes to mind at this point— The God of This World, The Serpent, the Prowling Lion, old Lucifer himself.

I’m not proud to echo this sentiment, but there it is.  If we’re honest, I bet we all do.

When I stamped my 2 year old foot and cried in anger, “NO! ME do it!”, that was actually me exercising Fortitude— the dubious gift that God allowed us after the Fall so that we were able to stand up and carry on.  Otherwise, I suppose, Adam would still be lying in a heap at God’s feet, crushed by the weight of his sin. But God made Him able to get up and leave the Garden—and the Tree of Life—behind.

The problem with Fortitude is that it makes us believe that being able to do things in our own strength is a good thing—something we should do.  But it works against us.  We go on a lot of detours and walk in endless pointless circles in our own “strength”.  Scripture tells us that the things we accomplish in our humanness amount to wood, hay and stubble, and they will be reduced to ash and dust at the end of things, just like our physical body.   (I Corinthians 3:13)

In fact, most of what we think of as “virtue” is really “natural virtue”— things we decide to do on our own, and then have trouble sustaining.  Loving our neighbor or giving grace to the guy holding us up on the freeway are usually somewhat short-lived.  We can’t sustain them for very long.  

Billy Graham said, “The whole world has become a neighborhood, without becoming a brotherhood.”

We know we should be following these commandments, but we just can’t.

Human strength is actually pretty weak and unreliable.  It’s a good thing we can’t be like God— we would surely make a mess of it.  

Jesus told the disciples that if they loved Him, they would keep His commandments. (John 14:15) 

 

But how do we do that??  

Spiritual virtues are the only ones that hold.  They are the only virtues that carry on when we realize we can’t do it anymore.  We just can’t.  But God can.

Start by telling Jesus:  “Lord, I can’t.  But you can.”

Tell Him over and over.  As many times as you fail.

And pray for the fruits (virtues) of the Spirit.  Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.  Pray and pray.  

Every time we act in our “natural” self, we need to run straight to the Cross— that place where Jesus said “It is finished.”—where He laid down His life so that Death would be no more— where He nailed Sin to the Cross so that it would END!

(Colossians 2: 1-15)

And slowly, inch by inch, step by step, we will be surprised to find that we are becoming so much a part of the Vine that there are areas where we can’t see the division between us.  Someday we will find that we have surrendered our right to Fortitude.  We will hardly ever blow our trumpets, mount our horses, and gallop off in our own direction.  Instead, we will ask:

“Lord, is this something you would have me do?  How would you like me to accomplish that, Lord?”  

It will almost feel “natural”— but, of course, it’s not.  

It’s God’s Holy Spirit working in us, having “cancelled out the debt..and nailed it to the cross” (v.14)— all as a consequence of surrendering ourselves to Christ, continually seeking to abide in the Vine, praying without ceasing, allowing ourselves to be buried with Him and raised with Him over and over.  We put off the Old Self and put on the New Self until we no longer take costly detours to get where God wants us to go, and the New Self takes up most of the bandwidth.

Sin began when Lucifer became jealous of God and came to believe that He could do the job as well or better than the Creator Himself.  His Fall began in Heaven with the words, “I would be like God.”

Sin ended when a Man cried tears of blood in a Garden, and surrendering His right to Life, even his right to be God, told His Father, “Not my will, but Thine be done.” He walked willingly into Death with the words “It is finished”.  All for the sake of His Creation.

Hallelujah!

So let's follow Jesus by loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves.  John tells us that when we fall we have an advocate with the Father— one who knows only too well the path we are on.  We are walking in the prints His sandals left along the way.

One of my favorite songs is "Knowing You" by Matthew Ward.

Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBIklSO4JbM&list=RDHBIklSO4JbM&start_radio=1