But that’s not what I find so sobering and shocking in this Psalm. It’s the rest of the passage that cuts me to the heart. The rebuke directed at his own people was serious, and convicting. But look what he says to those who are not his people (and I must remember that without the glorious grace of adoption this is where I was, and would still stand).

“But to the wicked God says:
‘What right have you to recite my statutes
or take my covenant on your lips?
For you hate discipline,
and you cast my words behind you…’”
Psalm 50:16-17

“What right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips?” Wow. God isn’t correcting the wicked; he isn’t graciously pointing out a failure in attitude or orientation. He isn’t patiently examining and adjusting their hearts. No. He casts them out utterly. He is not debating the proper approach toward sacrificing; he’s asking what right they have to even open their mouths. Because the wicked cast God’s words behind them, God refuses to even enter into conversation with them. His stand is simple–repent you wicked ones “lest I tear you apart.”

As one who stood outside the people of God, one who did indeed cast the words of God behind me, I stood with these condemning words on my head. Before God in his mercy plucked me from the edge of destruction I arrogantly took God’s statutes on my lips to degrade them, to heap contempt on them, to despise them. I shouldn’t have even had them on my lips, but I dared not only to take them up but to ridicule them.

So what possible reason then could I have to expect mercy? I wasn’t trying to obey God’s statutes. The people of God may need rebuke for improper practices and need adjustment in their heart’s orientation toward God’s grace, but I wasn’t even in the game. I stood outside uninterested, scoffing, and despising the word of God.

There’s more. As I stood scoffing, disparaging and disrespecting God’s word, even then when I considered the possibility of the existence of a God, of eternal life, and judgment–I did not fear. I arrogantly and presumptuously assumed that God was “one like myself” (Ps. 50:21). I believed that if God existed at all that he would certainly accept me, that he would understand my failures, recognize my goodness and welcome me.

How deceived and dangerously ignorant I was. How horrifying it would have been to be expecting an understanding side-hug from God as he welcomed me into eternal life and instead to hear him roar, “Who are you? and what right did you have to take my words on your lips?” as he sent me into eternal darkness.

There was nothing I did that changed God’s mind toward me, that motivated him to rescue me from such a terrifying fate. It was his mercy alone, undeserved, inconceivable mercy that received my disgust and returned love. By his grace he opened my eyes to the beauty of Christ. How thankful I am for the cross, where in one grand action God bled, atoning for my sins, and demonstrated his glorious love converting my hard heart–turning me away from total destruction and delivering me into the kingdom of his son.

Bless the Lord O my soul. Lord you are merciful, converting enemies into friends–transforming mockers into singers of your praise. Hallelujah!

I am often guilty of the evil boasting of arrogance that presumptuously declares where I will go and what I will do as though such things were in my control. I’ve been trying to obey the instruction that James gives about not boasting, but instead saying “if the Lord wills” I will do such and such. But I noticed something in my most recent reading of this passage. James doesn’t just tell us to say “if the Lord wills we will do this or that,” he says “if the Lord wills we will live and do this or that.”

When considering my plans I need to always preface my intentions with the reality that where I go and what I do are governed entirely by God’s will. This is right, but insufficient. For not only are my ways directed by his will, but my days are too. I ought not to presume upon one more day of life, or one more minute for that matter. If the Lord wills I will live, and finish this paragraph.

Since the root problem of speaking presumptuously is arrogance, remembering the “if we live” part this exhortation can be especially helpful in combating my pride and producing humility. Acknowledging God’s governance of my ways is right and helpful, remembering that he upholds my very life by his will alone is even more sobering. But it is also comforting. If the Lord wills “we will live…” If I am humble and receive the Lordship of Christ I need not fear death. My days are controlled by Christ. I will not live one day more than those God has ordained, nor will I live one day less. And receiving the Lordship of Christ makes me happy to live or die, for “to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow’r of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow’r of Christ I’ll stand.
In Christ Alone – Words and Music by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend
Copyright © 2001 Kingsway Thankyou Music

Thank you Jesus for your power, your strong hand that upholds my life, gives me breath, and sustains me. Help me not to resist your will, to strive, or to arrogantly boast of where I will go or what I will do. Help me to remember that all my days and all my paths are ordained by you. Cause me to rejoice in your control, not resist it or ignore it–for you are good and worthy of praise. Amen.

Joseph’s brothers protested against the accusation of theft. They were indignant, even offended, that such men as themselves would be accused. They appealed to their character and their righteousness against the charge, “far be it from your servants,” “how then could we steal.” Their protest against the specific charge was genuine since they had been set up by Joseph. Yet when the silver cup was discovered they tore their clothes and fell down. They confessed before Joseph “God has found out the iniquity of your servants.”

Isn’t it odd that these scoundrels, liars, kidnappers, and band of immoral men would appeal to their character in declaration of their innocence? Ironically, they were innocent with respect to the cup – but they were guilty regarding so much greater injustice. Yet they were hard hearted toward their own sinfulness and blinded to their true guilt.

This turn of events affected Judah the most among all the brothers since he had made his own sons surety for the safe return of Benjamin. Interestingly, when they had returned from their first trip to Egypt it was Reuben who offered his son in surety for Benjamin. Reuben was the least guilty among the brothers since he tried to rescue Joseph. Reuben’s offer was refused by his father. But later, a similar offer from Judah was accepted. As the ringleader of the kidnapping and now with his sons at stake, Judah stood at the center of conviction. Events arranged themselves so that this guilty one was brought to his knees. It was Judah who said it – “how can we justify ourselves?” Though still blind to his real sin, and hardened to the extent of sin in his own heart, God brought him to repentance using a silver cup.

It’s amazing how God patiently makes arrangements in my life to bring about conviction. How often small unexpected things in my life get revealed – things relatively minor in comparison to other deeper sins that are much more dishonoring to God.

I am so resistant to conviction and I often protest my innocence when God reveals a hidden silver cup of sin concealed in my sack of deeds. “I didn’t know that was there,” I protest – “I didn’t put it there,” I object. But protest is useless – there it is. And like Joseph’s brothers I protest in vain because such cups are small things – I am actually guilty of so much more. But a small thing, objectively revealed, breaks my heart and God in His mercy brings me to repentance. It is merciful of God when He accomplishes my repentance and contrition through gentleness – knowing that I often cannot bear the direct disclosure of the deepest sins of my heart. So He prepares me for such disclosures by humbling me and granting me a contrite and broken spirit – with smaller things first. Then, bowed down, found out, I am prepared to face my real sin – just as Joseph’s brothers would soon realize who they were caught by – and be faced with what they really had done.

O Lord. Thank you for your tender mercy and steadfast love. Thank you for sneaking in those silver cups – designed and arranged to convict me of sin. Thank you that you don’t usually reveal the deepest things immediately – but that you architect my repentance so that I am not crushed. Yet you do reveal. I will see the betrayals of my own heart – but thank you Lord that as you reveal you also remind me of my forgiveness, complete in Christ and secured by the cross. You are good – and your lovingkindness lasts forever. Amen.

It will be much easier for me if I humble myself than if I must be humbled by external means. When pride rules in my heart I strive and strain, kicking against the restraint of rules, or responsibilities, or any of the circumstances God ordains to rein me in. But if I walk in humility, those implements which impose restraint will be worn comfortably.

My wife has recently had one of her life long dreams come true. She has a pony and a horse. She is now learning all sorts of new things about how to handle a horse. One of these things is that a horse needs to be humbled. And once humbled, it must be worked with regularly to maintain its cooperative state. If left to itself, for any length of time, it will become resistant.

Blaze, our new horse, is humbled, but Peaches the pony is not. Blaze can be led about with a gentle tug on his halter – Peaches resists and must be yanked around. The horse, while being much bigger than the pony, can be ridden by our young children. The pony can only be ridden by an experienced rider – one who knows how to kick and prod and keep her under control.

Both Blaze and Peaches wear the same kind of halter, and we use a similar bit and bridle on each when we ride them. But while Blaze yields to a gentle tug, Peaches has to be kicked and yanked in order to go where we want her to.

My wife will often take Blaze out of the fenced-in meadow and walk him through the yard and the adjacent fields where he can eat from the tall green grasses. As he is enjoying his munching, Peaches whinnies and gallops around in displeasure, having been left behind, alone inside the fence.

God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. He loves His children and therefore disciplines us for our good. He uses many devices to turn me from pride to humility. All of these devises, these means of humility, are from His mercy – and I need them. To be led about a horse needs to wear its halter, and a bit and bridle must be put on before it can be ridden. To maintain humility, to keep my soul in a state of happy compliance with God, I must also wear the means of humility – whatever they may be – just as a horse must wear its halter. If I remove the means of humility my wild, fleshly nature will soon re-assert itself. But if I receive the means without resistance they can be worn quite comfortably such that, at times, I may not even be aware of their presence. But if I struggle against the means of humility, not only do they become uncomfortable, but my inner outrage fusses and complains just like the pony blustering inside the fence as its partner grazes happily in the rich green meadow.

To be humble is a happy, comfortable and blessed condition. To be humbled hurts twice – it feels the intent of restraints and it boils inside with the vexation of pride which poisons the soul.

In contrast, while my humility is maintained, in part by external and merciful means, the humility of Jesus is perfect and complete. He needed no restraints to perfectly obey His Father’s will. How ironic that they bound Jesus with ropes as they led Him to the court. His humility and obedience were, in themselves strong as iron. What strength is there in a rope or a chain compared to the resolve and joyful obedience of Christ. I may need prods, but His compliance comes from a perfect contentment in the will of God. He submitted to the ropes, the chains, the nails, not because he needed to be held by external force, but because he stood in our place, as our representative, as our substitute. The ropes were our ropes. And if we faced the judgment of wrath we would by no means stand still; we would run, hide, and flee from our condemnation – if we could. And so, as a stand-in for us, He wore the ropes and was tied to the post and fastened to the cross.

Oh, to be humble! Lord, grant this blustering one humility and make me happy to walk in your green pastures. Grant me grace to humble myself so that I may walk about in all the fullness of your blessings – happily as you designed. Kill my pride and my kicking spirit – let me wear the means of my salvation with joy gladness. Thank you for the grace that can make this soul happy in your fields. Amen.

“Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check, otherwise they will not come near to you.” Psalms 32:9

I’m an American – home of the free, land of liberty, fight for your rights – American. And I was born a New England Yankee – live free or die, don’t tread on me, toss the tea overboard – Yankee. I grew up in Connecticut and settled in Rhode Island where Roger Williams established the state on the foundation of religious freedom. Today, on top of the Rhode Island state house stands the “independent man.” He grips his spear shining in golden splendor, as he exalts the virtues of freedom and independence. He reminds all Rhode Islanders that our forebears fought and died for freedom. We Americans love our independence. Every 4th of July we celebrate how we won it through revolution. Throughout our history America has stood tall and fought for the superior virtue of freedom and independence at home and throughout the world – and we continue to fight for it to this day.

I love independence because I am an American. The word itself sounds good to my ears. It evokes the marching melodies of whistle, fife and drum. This paper, however, is a document of personal repentance regarding independence and its close cousin, self-reliance. While raw pride is a condition common to all men, in my life the roots of pride grew into the tree-trunk of arrogance, and its braches bear the fruit of independent self-reliance. More precisely, this fruit is most often in the form of ambitious invention and vain innovation.

Repenting of ambitious invention and vain innovation is tricky, which is one reason I am writing this out. It’s tricky because while sinful pride is easy to find, and arrogance is equally easily discovered, improper independence, ambitious invention and vain innovation are more easily camouflaged. It’s also tricky because while pride and arrogance must always to be fought and killed, there are proper, righteous and God-honoring ways to be independent, inventive and innovative.

I am American and because I am by nature, culture and personal appetite more arrogant and self-reliant than most, my ability to divide between self-ambition and godly aspiration is compromised. My sensibilities and inclinations are permissive toward pride and I tend to regard my love of independence in the most favorable light. Therefore I have set out to trace some of these edges in writing, and I publish them both to repentant publicly and so that my brothers and sisters in Christ may help me wage war against pride. While the fruit of pride may often be camouflaged to me, others may see it more clearly.

If independence, invention and innovation are unlike raw pride and arrogance in that they are not inherently sinful, it is helpful to differentiate exactly how they can be properly pursued. As for independence, I think it is normal and right for governments to defend and protect their territorial sovereignty and self-determination. I believe that our American form of government is a very good form of government, and many of its foundations rest on God designed principals for the establishment of justice, law, peace, security, and the common good. However, the values of freedom, liberty, and independence that may underlay government are not fitting for the individual pursuit of Christian faith. The same principals that can make for a God-honoring form of government can also become destructive if imbibed as personal virtues.

The New Testament uses the most non-independent language when it describes my relationship to the Lord. The softest of such language describes me as a servant of Christ. Being called a servant doesn’t jibe real well with my Yankee ideals. If I have trouble being called a servant, I have even more trouble being called a bondservant, that is, a slave. Nor do I like the label “prisoner of the Lord.” Yet that is what the Bible says that I am. Christ is Master and I am His slave – a blessed slave, to righteousness, having been freed from the dominion of sin – yet a true slave. I must live a life of obedience to my master’s pleasure. If I disobey I will receive His stern, yet always loving, hand of discipline to correct me. I have been bought with a price; I am not my own. This is not the kind of autonomy and independence that my American sensibilities are comfortable with.

When I was called to Christ I came to Him packaged and molded by my culture. It is not easy to divide between my inherited cultural values and the new ones which are being cultivated in me by Christ. For example, my culture has taught me to value freedom and independence through years of public school, and Saturday morning School House Rock cartoons. These fun cartoons depict the shooting of British soldiers set to catchy jingles. My revolutionary spirit is bolstered when I see evil King George, who had the gaul to tax our cup of tea. My inclination to resist dominion is reinforced when I see him – in cartoon form – laughing at us colonists from his throne in England. It makes me want to grab my musket, grab my gun, and report to General Washington. Through such influences I have been trained to abhor the mention of the words “subjugation,” “submission”, or “slavery,” – they are noxious to my freedom loving sensibilities.

But with regard to God, subjugation, submission and slavery are among the highest of spiritual virtues. Under the gospel, independence and freedom are given new names – pride and arrogance. As an American Christian I can be severely blind to how my love for independence might rot my relationship to God.

As an American, becoming conformed to the image of Christ will involve considerable repentance with regard to my love for personal independence. God must go to work on me to kill my notions of human preeminence and personal freedom. My soul must be rid of self-reliance and give way to humble, Christ-oriented faith. This is hard, and involves much putting to death of things that have always seemed good and right, but which, in relationship to God, are terribly evil. For example, when I was in high school I memorized a portion of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay on self-reliance which begins, “Who so would be a man, must be a non-conformist….” As a high school student I went so far as to call his essay my own personal bible. What seemed so noble, so right, and so good to me then now reeks of the stench of human pride and arrogance. These words reveled in the glory of man, obscuring the glory of God. It was the foolishness of a young man which boasted in arrogance and promoted the glory of self. But God, in mercy, reached down to save an arrogant one like me. I thought well of myself and called God names. I had no fear of God. I had no respect for my creator, rather I boasted in self-reliance. Praise the Lord of mercy for His grace that chose to die for such a sinful, boastful race!

God, in His inscrutable mercy, reaches down and plucks sinners like me from our self-driven race toward eternal destruction. His bewildering mercy displays the riches of His glorious grace. God ordained and established the very moment my salvation. Though His sovereign choice and effectual calling, a proud sinner bent his knees at irresistible grace. Transforming grace fell upon a happy recipient in an instant. Yet God has worked much more slowly to bring this rebel into conformity to Christ. For example, when Christ called me, I still had a high regard for Emerson and disdained the very notion, even the very word “conformity.” This distain continued for years after I was saved. My old self died with Christ, but it seems that it will take a lifetime for rigor mortis to finally set in on the corpse of my flesh. Slowly though, old polluted values like self-love and self-reliance start to stink like they should. Likewise, it takes time as my new sense of smell develops, so that the heavenly, pleasing aroma of the superior glory of God becomes far more desirable than the old smells of personal freedom. Slowly, God reveals more of my pride, kills it, and replaces it will soul satisfying trust in Christ.

The forms of pride are many and varied. Independence is one form I inherited from my culture. Self-reliance is another form, and this one I ate eagerly and cultivated even more than my culture might, because I loved it. More refined forms of pride in my life include ambitious invention and vain innovation, forms I have only recently begun to recognize.

My cultural inclinations and natural appetites cause me to stumble again and again. Identifying the sinful roots and poisonous fruit of pride, as it weaves itself into independence, self-reliance, innovation, and invention is increasingly harder for me to discern. It is easy and right to vilify sinful pride as an abstract. It can’t be redeemed it must be killed. Not much subtlety is needed – pride bad, kill pride. However, as pride infiltrates my life it gets trickier. Independence and self-reliance are well concealed targets. But putting them to death is hard because they are not always enemies and they can in some cases be redeemed for proper use. For example, as already mentioned, independence can be good is relationship to government. Self-reliance can be good in the sense that it is good for a young man to be trained up so that in due time he becomes confident enough to leave his father and mother to form a family of his own. This growth into a man who can rely on himself rather then his parents, making a living wage to support himself, is one of the objectives of his parenting throughout his life.

Now ambitious invention and vain innovation are seriously moving targets. That’s because raw pride takes every advantage it can as it tries to permeate my character and establish a foothold. When pride finds areas like invention and innovation that are potentially good and have the possibility of glorifying God, it can more easily mimic and corrupt them. There are truly good and God-glorifying ways to pursue innovation and invention, which are redeemable characteristics. Innovation has some very proper and good use – especially in commerce where such inventiveness can result in cures for illness, work for the idle, and food for the poor. Discernment of the effects of pride in invention and innovation is very difficult for me. Here is where I am torn. I am reluctant to call pride in its sinful forms by any friendly names. Pride and its fellows are my mortal enemies and I hate how they intercept my view of the glory of God and diminish my enjoyment of God’s goodness. Because pride kills in all of its sinful forms, I must concern myself with killing it wherever I discover its influence. Yet it would not be right to indiscriminately kill every impulse to inventiveness or innovation (or independence). God forbid – He gives creativity to His creatures for the express purpose of glorying Himself and blessing mankind. Therefore I must seek God’s grace daily, and I must use every means of grace to improve my understanding of God’s wisdom in His Word concerning ambitious invention and vain innovation.

I have found the book of Ecclesiastes particularly useful in learning to discern between ambitious invention and godly invention, vain innovation and godly innovation. I have observed in myself, that innovation and ingenuity have their roots in pride when they desire to create something that hasn’t been thought of before, or when it seeks to abandon something that has existed for a very long time in favor of a new idea or what I think is a better idea. The notion of creating and improving always sounds good to my American ears. And they can be, but they can also be full of deadly pride. God wants me to be humble. He wants me to see Him as the purpose behind all things. And Ecclesiastes is a wonderful book that can be used to humble prideful ambition, converting it into its proper form – godly aspiration. Ecclesiastes does this first by reminding me that there is nothing new under the sun.

That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9

Innovators like me hate that statement. The book goes on to reinforce the futility of work and ambition for all will die and whatever gains we might make will be eaten up or obscured over time. I will not be remembered.

For there is no lasting remembrance of the wise man as with the fool, inasmuch as in the coming days all will be forgotten. And how the wise man and the fool alike die! Ecclesiastes 2:16

Solomon also tells me that there are some things that God has intentionally bent that cannot be straightened, and to try to straighten these will result only in failure and fatigue – it is a grasping after wind. What God has bent, man cannot straighten. Likewise there are some things I might desire to know that cannot be discovered.

Consider the work of God, for who is able to straighten what He has bent? Ecclesiastes 7:13

…and I saw every work of God, I concluded that man cannot discover the work which has been done under the sun. Even though man should seek laboriously, he will not discover; and though the wise man should say, “I know,” he cannot discover. Ecclesiastes 8:17

I do not believe that this means God never wants us to pursue improvements. Subduing the earth is a fundamental part of fulfilling God’s will for mankind to the glory and praise of God. However, if such improvements are pursued arrogantly – as though I can unbend something God has bent, or that I can create, invent, or discover something new as though God has not already thought of everything that can be created, invented, or discovered – I commit a grievous evil against God and in the process my own soul becomes vexed.

This is another example of how hard it can be to divide between my American influences and truly Christian values. Americans value ingenuity. We are ambitious to improve upon the way all things work. We’ve “invented” electricity, assembly lines, telephones, and computers in our pursuit of innovation. I remember one episode of “This Old House” where they were demonstrating a new gutter attachment for a leaf blower. Amazing! Leaf blowers themselves are an amazing example of how thoroughly Americans are inclined to find ways to move stuff faster and more efficiently. And now to conceive of a gutter attachment – brilliant! I don’t think such ingenuity and invention is bad, quite the opposite in fact. However, the impulses to invent better mousetraps coupled with rigorous independence can easily result in a worldly ambition that supplants what might otherwise be good and godly aspiration. Selfish ambition is a grievous evil full of vanity and futility. But godly aspiration founded upon the humility of accepting my existence as a dependent creature can lead to a proper fear of God, one fruit of which is a God glorifying satisfaction and joy in all allotted work – even when one’s work is to be an innovator.

There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and tell himself that his labor is good. This also I have seen that it is from the hand of God. For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him? For to a person who is good in His sight He has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, while to the sinner He has given the task of gathering and collecting so that he may give to one who is good in God’s sight. This too is vanity and striving after wind. Ecclesiastes 2:24-26

The idea of doing something truly new through innovation and ingenuity is a notion devoid of God – for there is nothing new to God. He is already complete and perfect. I can never improve upon God. And all the innovation of the world will never allow me to live apart from God – not that I would ever want to. He is the source and power that sustains life moment by moment. My cultural value for independence, freedom, ingenuity, and invention are not impressive to God. I have no life independent from Him. I find true freedom only in becoming a slave to His righteousness. Anything new I might discover, invent, or improve was always known to God from the beginning. Nothing has even been discovered that had not be intentionally concealed by God it in the first place.

My discovery of anything should always lead me to delight in the glory of the God that concealed it. Never should I exalt myself as an inventor – rather I should give praise to God as a revealer. God invents and may sometimes grant me the grace to discover – praise be to God! This kind of innovation can be a tremendously God glorifying and soul satisfying activity, and its effects are a bonus, which like gutter attachments, are granted for the blessing of mankind. In contrast, arrogant compulsion to un-bend the intentionally bent, or discover things that God has not permitted, or act as though we discovered something new leads only to futility, judgment, and despair.

Now I must make specific confession. For in as much as I inherited American values for independence and self-reliance, I have also inherited a love of innovation. Such loves need to be killed in their sinful forms and renewed in their God glorifying intents. God has done a measure of work in my life, which is necessarily ongoing, with regard to independence and self-reliance. Only recently has He revealed the sinful character of my ambitious desire for innovation and improvement. And this paper is part of my repentance, nailing this form of pride to the cross – and to remind me of its dangers in the future.

I must speak with great caution in this regard. I have to be very careful to speak only of my own sin, and not to excuse myself or seek to lessen blame in view of cultural influences. I must be especially careful because some of the specific fruits of this sin in my life were lived out corporately. In as much as I make personal confession of sin for things I did as part of a group, I might also infer that the group committed the same sins. I have no desire to make such accusations. Only God knows the heart. The same actions taken by different people can flow from entirely different motives. It is possible that while I participated in certain group decisions that the decisions themselves were good, that the motives of others who agreed were pure, and that only in my own sinful, self-reliant, and ambitious heart did I sin against the rule and sovereignty of God.

Nevertheless, I must confess that it was in regard to how I helped lead and guide our church that I am guilty of prideful ambition and independence. God has brought me to a place, over the past three years, of repentance and acknowledgement that the struggles, failures, and ultimate disbandment of our church were the result of the firm but loving discipline of our heavenly Father. I have suffered loss. I have been humbled. And God has been good to call me to repentance. I now reject my love for independence and autonomy with regard to the church. I think that in part, my extreme independence, and regrettable arrogance, often kept our churches isolated from the influence of the greater Christian community, to its detriment. Because I was independent and arrogant I despised other churches, spoke against what I perceived as their fatal flaws and actively resisted outside influence.

I confess that I thought of myself as part of a group of innovators whose ingenious methods and improved ways of doing church could “fix” the church at large. I hear echoes of my own words criticizing “the church” for its infirmities, rejecting out of hand, much of what my Sovereign God has done with His church throughout the centuries. I despised, thought little of, and easily disregarded the methods and wisdom of the “traditional church” in favor of new schemes. Before I continue I feel I must qualify these statements. Many, even most of the values I embraced in my church, and those that as a leader I promoted in the church were, in fact, very good, biblical, and right. I still hold almost all of them today. I value my past experience deeply and have great affection for those by whom I was taught, and with whom I later ministered.

But even though most of what I experienced was good, yet there was, on my part, a subtext running along much of these right and good values and biblical principles. In the same way that innovation can be very good, yet if ambitious invention underlies it, the efforts become dishonoring to God. Trying to hold biblical principles from an arrogant and independent spirit is simply pride hiding its true nature by mimicking something good. The prideful subtext in my heart was the attitude that we had somehow figured out how to do church right, while others churches were lost in their weaker church practices.

We had some ideas that were categorized in my mind as “radical discoveries.” And that’s where pride grabbed hold. I feel no need to itemize which ideas were of this ilk – because it’s the thought I had discovered some radical wisdom that was the folly. For God says, “And what do you have that you have not received? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” 1 Corinthians 4:7. I will never have an inventive thought about the church that God was not always aware of. If God were to happen to reveal some “new” way to pursue church or ministry, such an idea would not be new to God. If I find some clue in the scriptures that brings my thinking and practice into a new light, it came from the light that God Himself put into the Bible from the beginning. God is never amazed at my “discoveries.” They are never news to Him.

I must reiterate that what was wrong in our church was not in the church so much as is it was in my heart. The fact that I was only one of a group of elders responsible for our church does not minimize my guilt. I credit any influence or inclination in our church toward independence and self-reliance to my own fault. I fault myself because I know how much my soul loved independence and ambition. I really wanted to be a part of a revolution in church planting. I wanted to un-bend things that either God has intentionally bent, or were never truly bent in the first place – they only seemed bent from my distorted perspective.

Finally, I must again qualify my use of repentant language because not every desire to improve the church and how it operates is bad. Quite the opposite, we are all commanded to exhort one another daily. And what is exhorting if not a plea to improve and do better? Innovation in ministry that accords with humility and Christ exalting intentions is truly virtuous and pleases the Lord. Church leaders should always strive for improvement and look for new ways to be a blessing to the body. The church should strive to find new ways of proclaiming and ministering the gospel. We should pour ourselves out in entrepreneurial efforts to reach the ends of the earth with the gospel. But all things should be done humbly, trusting in God who will not let us see the whole work of God under the sun. Therefore I should be filled with godly aspirations, while always fighting against selfish ambition. Discerning between the two is not easy for me, and it requires much cross-centered introspection, mutual accountability and personal vigilance in prayer.

To you, O God, and you alone be glory throughout the earth both now and forever. Amen.

An argument started among them as to which of them might be the greatest.”

Luke 9:43-46

It is an amazing testimony to the tenacity of indwelling sin, that not even a front row seat before the radiance of the glory of Christ can eradicate our pride and arrogance. We need to see the glory of Christ, but we need to see His glory in and through the cross in order to put sin to death.

Shortly after witnessing the transfiguration of Christ, James and John started to get cocky. Their close association with the one who would be enthroned as king went to their heads. But Jesus knew better what awaited Him in Jerusalem. His kingdom would not be established through worldly triumph, but rather through the cross. The glory of the cross was not the kind of glory the disciples were anticipating as they boldly approached Jerusalem.

Jesus tried to warn them. He exhorted them to let His words sink into their ears – “The son of man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.” But they were so certain that greatness was at hand that they could not, would not, understand what Jesus was talking about. They tasted power and authority. James and John’s behavior revealed their expectation that they would be among this king’s deputies. And they were already jockeying for position among the twelve, for surely Jesus would set an order of authority. If they were to secure a high position they need to start acting like the leaders they intended to become.

So they started policing the crowds with their authority. When someone tried to cast out demons apart from their authorization – they put a stop to it. When a Samaritan village refused to receive the King – they were ready to call fire down upon it.

James and John were among the inner circle of the inner circle. They had been chosen to follow the most amazing man in history. And though they never observed even a hint of arrogance exemplified in their master, and though had just recently seen Him shinning in His glory, nevertheless they became arrogant.

In the midst of their arrogance Jesus warned them that what they expected in Jerusalem was not going to happen – rather something they were not able to understand awaited them. Had they understood, their attitudes would not have been so completely inconsistent with their appointed positions. But they could not see it. Arrogance is like that – it blinds. It even blinds us to the glory of the cross. If we fall into the trap of thinking highly of ourselves, we fail to understand how the crucifixion is good news. If we arrogantly perceive ourselves as something great we cannot calculate how God could be glorified by going to the cross.

Arrogance blinds us to the glory of the cross, but the cross is the cure for blinding arrogance.

After Jesus died and rose again – after the cross – the disciples were changed. The boasting manifest on the road to Jerusalem ceased. In view of the cross there can be no boasting in one’s position. The cross crushes all vain anticipation of worldly power – and replaces it with eternal hopes and joyful satisfaction in the redeemer of souls. It is impossible to see the cross, to truly see it, and remain arrogant. The gospel of the cross smashes pride and replaces it with God-honoring, Christ-exulting, fellow-man-loving humility.

The process through which the disciples’ arrogance was killed and replaced with humility was indeed a painful one. Christ endured the pains of the cross – but the disciples suffered too. Those days leading up to the crucifixion and the days He was in the ground were dream-shattering, gut-wrenching, terrifying days. Unfortunately, pride and arrogance is rarely broken without similarly traumatic events. But God is wonderfully faithful to bring such events into our lives. I rejoice that he will not leave me in my pride. I might walk, for a season, as on a triumphal road to Jerusalem. Jesus patiently puts up with me along the road even as He reminds me of pride’s dangers.

Yet warnings often don’t have enough weight to break my pride, only a view of the cross can effectively overcome arrogance and replace it with humility. When the dark night of the soul arrives the foolishness of boasting becomes evident. And gloriously – at the same time that pride is crushed the eyes are opened to the glory of the cross. The gospel light shines into the heart with power. Yes, sin is painfully exposed – but through repentance the eyes of the heart are opened to the glory of God in the face of Christ. We see His perfection, His holiness, His righteousness, and His wisdom, and it delights the soul. God’s mercy exposes pride, and His beauty bestows humility.

Lord Jesus, thank you for your faithful wounds that heal. Thank you that the power of the cross – the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings is the road to seeing your glory. Keep my feet on your path. Grant me grace to walk straight. And with each step – whether smooth or rocky – let my eyes see your face before me. Amen.

I wonder how the gospel was preached prior to the crucifixion? Throughout Jesus’ ministry He and His disciples preached the gospel of the kingdom of God. Whatever allusions to the cross contained in these messages were lost to its hearers. Yet the gospel was preached. Certainly, there are many things that can be said about the gospel without direct reference to the cross. For example: righteous requirements for human conduct, promises for future rewards, hope for peace, and standards for justice. Such facets of the nascent gospel were understood best by Jews – because they had the law and prophets as context. Even so the Jews struggled to comprehend the basic aspects of the non-cross centered gospel – how much more perplexing would a cross exalting gospel be to them.

Yet the gospel, in its fullness, was ordained from eternity to be manifest through the cross of Christ. The gospel about the greatness of the glory of God was never designed to be understood primarily through any historical context, but rather through the revelation of a hidden mystery. The pinnacle of the gospel was plunked down, as it were, in the midst of history. For who would have imagined the cross? Who could comprehend the innocent and pure Lamb of God would be slaughtered for corrupt God-haters? The cross had no historical antecedent. It did have some vague foreshadowing and symbolic representation in the Old Testament, but such hints of a God slaying gospel were never established in human expectations.

The cross-centered gospel of Christ transcends all earthly historical context or rational ground for understanding and grasping the glory of God. It is the ultimate spiritual enigma.

True, there are many aspects of the gospel which can be spoken of, explained, and preached which have common ground in human understanding. For instance we can speak in depth about the gospel’s effects on family relationships in a way just about anyone can grasp and appreciate. But ultimately it is the gospel of grace, seen in a cross, which establishes and explains every aspect of existence. The gospel’s cross exalting core rests not on human wisdom, but on hidden wisdom. The wisdom of the cross is a mystery which no human ruler has ever understood. It is foolishness to the so-called enlightened and distained by the human-centered mind.

But the mystery of the gospel is wonderful to those who are called, to those whom God has been pleased to reveal it. The cross perfectly connects earth and eternity. It brings the greatness of the glory of the gospel of Christ into view thereby halting all arrogant speculations and humbling all before the inexplicable mercy of God. The knowledge of such a wonderful redeeming God does not come through an understanding of historical precedent. On the contrary the self-authenticating, supernatural, spiritual revelation of the gospel in the soul comes through the power of the Spirit of God. It is the spiritual impartation of the gospel that enables right understanding of history. History, in this sense, begins at the cross and works backward and forward from it. For no one could have guessed from the beginning, what God would do. And no one coming after the cross can grasp the wisdom of the cross unless he is given new eyes and a new heart.

I praise you Lord for the glorious gospel of grace in the message of the cross. For by it your righteousness is exalted and by it I have life. Lord set the eyes of my heart on the glory of the cross and let your Spirit flow with power to proclaim and adorn the gospel – to the glory of Christ above. Amen.

I don’t look up enough. I think God wants me to look up a lot and gaze at the sun, moon and stars. God made them to be for signs and seasons, and for days and years. In order to use the stars this way requires a lot of observation. Civilizations throughout history have observed the heavens and invented systems and used them for measuring seasons, and making maps to find their way. To make use of this inherent functionality of the stars required them to look intensely, observing and recording over long periods of time. Not only did they have to observe, record, and analyze the stars in order to understand there function, once they established these systems, putting them to use required people to look at them all the time. I suspect that God has an ulterior motive in requiring us to spend so much time star gazing. That is, to make us remember Him. When I stare up at the night sky, full of stars, I cannot help but to feel my own smallness.

“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him?” Psalm 8:3-4

Coming to grips with my own smallness also leads me to praise God for His greatness and grandeur.

“[It is God] Who alone stretches out the heavens and tramples down the waves of the sea; Who makes the Bear, Orion and the Pleiades, and the chambers of the south; who does great things, unfathomable, and wondrous works without number.” Job 9:8-10

“He who made the Pleiades and Orion and changes deep darkness into morning, who also darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth, the LORD is His name.” Amos 5:8

But as one who lives in the modern world I don’t often look up at the sky. That’s because I have all sorts of gadgets and documents that allow me to measure time, days, seasons and years without ever having to look up. In fact, if I had to rely on the moon and stars for this information I’d be in trouble, because I am astronomically illiterate.

Since I don’t know how to read the sky, and I have other tools to meet my need for measuring time, I don’t regularly look up at the sky. I wonder how much my lack of star gazing is affecting my awe of God. If being struck by my finitude and amazed at God’s infinite nature is part of God’s intent for the stars – my lack of looking will abrogate this effect in my life. Therefore, in the same way that my modern sedentary job requires me to artificially exercise by going for a run to stay physically healthy, I should also make myself go outside on clear nights and spend some time looking up. If I don’t get my fill of the stars out of necessity, I should probably star-gaze out of humility – or rather, for humility.

Lord I want to be filled with awe at your grandeur and majesty. Teach me and help me to use all available means of grace to get that awe into my soul, even such simple means of grace as looking at the stars and praising you, the maker of heaven and earth. Amen.

This is the second time this centurion has captured my attention. When I encountered him during my meditations in Matthew chapter eight I wrote a devotional called “A Centurion Came to Him, Entreating Him.” What originally captured my attention was Jesus’s estimation of this man’s faith – I wanted to squeeze out as many insights into what this great faith was like, so that my own faith might grow too. This time I encountered him in Luke chapter seven. Here I’ve been impressed with the kind of life that nurtured such great faith. If a soul is like soil, which, if it’s good, bears fruit according to the seed sown in it, then I want to examine the composition of this centurion’s soil. It must been some good soil for Jesus to marvel its fruit!

I see some clues as to the kind of man this must have been. His character and humility are evident. First, he was the kind of man that highly regarded his servant. I would imagine that the typical Roman centurion was not cut from the most compassionate cloth. He ordered solders all the time, maybe sometimes he even ordered them to their deaths. Yet this slave was dear to him. He liked him, and hated to see him sick, he wanted to help.

When he heard about Jesus he sent the Jewish elders to ask for Jesus’s help. Now this is remarkable to me – the Jewish elders were inclined to help him! Here was a Roman centurion, part of an occupying force, a gentile no less, who had gained the respect and commendation of Jewish elders. The elders praised the centurion’s love for the nation of Israel and they pointed out how he built their synagogue for them. There aren’t any more details offered about his relationship to the local Jews, but there must have been a lot of engagement on his part to win over such respect, from those who would otherwise be adversarial. He was a man of authority, yet he must have had great humility. He seemed to understand and respect Jewish traditions, so much so that he did not want Jesus to come in to his home. He acknowledges that Israel is God’s chosen people and that, though he was a man-in-charge, he was nevertheless a gentile, and so he gladly submitted to Jewish customs and law. He even built a gathering house for the people, even though he was not one of them.

It seems to me that the centurion exercised authority in a God fearing and humble way. His great faith is displayed in how he recognized Jesus’s total authority and His ability to simply speak a word, in order to heal his servant. He is confident in Jesus’s effective authority because he himself has effective authority over those who are under his charge. I get the feeling that his servants and his troops honored this centurion and submitted to his authority, not just because of his position, but because of his kind, humble and generous character. His first statement regarding authority is that he himself was a man under authority. He viewed his submission to his superiors in the Roman army as his first responsibility with respect to authority. After that he considered his own authority which had been granted to him, and how to put it to proper use.

This was a righteous man. He is commended by the Lord himself and pointed out as having faith greater than any he had found in Israel. This event, as recorded in Matthew and Luke, points out a pinnacle expression of faith, but I don’t think it was a spontaneous or momentary expression. This man’s life was a soil bed of righteousness, honor, humility, kindness, and good works. And when the moment of faith arose, through an opportunity to call on Jesus for help, faith bore fruit and manifest itself in a way that brought great glory and honor to the Lord.

Jesus, make my life good soil. Water and tend my garden so that faith might be nurtured and grow strong like this centurion’s did. Help me to give attention to those daily activities and opportunities to emulate his behavior. Make me tender hearted, compassionate, loving, kind, humble, respectful, submissive, confident, and God fearing. Let these qualities fertilize the ground and soften it. Let faith grow and in your mercy and by your grace let it be evident in my life that Jesus has all authority and that I have confidence in Him. To the praise of your glory, O Lord, Amen.

“And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things;”
Luke 4:22, 28

How sobering is the sovereign will of God. He turns hearts one way or the other according to His eternal purposes. Jesus did not ride the wave of human of applause as he preached the gospel. By His own words He provoked the stubbornness and disobedience that was thinly concealed in the hearts of His own people. Even while the people of Nazareth wondered at His gracious words He changed the theme. Through true, prophetic words He announced that the kingdom blessings they had been longing for would not be given to them but rather to foreigners. By these words their pre-existing sins of stubbornness and rebellion were cemented – their rejection was firmly set, their blindness complete, and their backs forever bent.

That the people of Nazareth rejected one of their own was merely a foreshadowing of what the entire nation of Israel would do. For as the son of Joseph was to Nazareth, so the son of God would be to all Israel.

And this was God’s design from the beginning. The full-orbed totality of God’s sovereign control made sure that His judgment corresponded with Israel’s genuine culpability for their sin – for they indeed stiffened their necks in unbelief. Natural branches were justly cut off so that wild olive shoots like me could be graciously grafted in. One nation was hardened so that mercy might be extended to all.

O my soul – be sober. Do not be conceited but fear. You stand upon unheard of mercy – and that at the cost of others. You inherited a kingdom you did not build. You stand because of blood brought mercy and sovereign grace. Jesus, you bore the rage of your own people and much worse – the wrath of your very own Father. You secured mercy and gave it to unnatural branches like me. Make me humble Lord – properly humble as one who was once disobedient but now has been shown mercy, which resulted from the disobedience of others. Let me not be, in any way, arrogant – especially toward those that have been cut off. Rather call me to earnest prayer that I would continue in faith, and that those who were cut off might be restored – for what shall such a revival mean but life from the dead!

Be exalted Lord Jesus. Come soon. Amen.