Titus 3:3-5 "For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works..." NKJV
I think I'm a good christian, I really do, I read, fellowship, act bold (sometimes), pray, repent, and go to church. Pretty good resume? On top of all that I got this sweet Bible comentary that I can refer to and put together a radical study on Revelation and make everyone in this group think I'm a super bible scholar. Sadly, I really do this, no joke! I get filled up with a sense of pride sometimes that takes me away from the main point that should be my/our focus (Jesus Christ and the Love He showed in the atonement). It has been good for us to get into Revelation but for me there has been a backlash because I have lacked discipline in my thoughts by getting swollen with pride because I am acting like I have all the answers for the prophecies listed in Revelation. I subconciously used this study/blog to exaly myself by acting like I know so much. Thanks to a couple of the guys to get me back in line by expressing their desire to stay humble and focused on the word and not opinion. It is too often that we get blessed and forget where we came from. God gives us a book in our life and we swallow it and try to stack it ontop of the other books we have read so we can stand above others. Fact is we were once foolish and deceived like this verse from Titus says. We don't deserve salvation but yet God loved us so much He gave us a chance at it anyway. This will help us to deal with other people which can be challenging. Let's lean on the fact that we can fall short too and get filled up with that love again so we can start spilling out on people again (like the girl in the bar who used to bump into you and spill her drink all down your neck because her glass was too full, but it was okay because she was cute and gave you a little conversation from the incident. Anybody? No, my bad that was a bad example). I just wanted to cut myself open a bit and share what is happening over here. Like Blake said in his post a while back "Pride is ugly". I am so glad we have such a knowledgable group who continues to participate and keep us focused. I apologize for acting a fool and appreciate all the prayers.
4 comments:
"If you forget where you come from, you're never gonna make it to where you're going." -Wu
Thanks for the post, I can relate.
Lately, I have been trying to really control and plan out my next step and get confidence from MY plan and MY back up plan. Where do I come from? Before God I was a drunk, lusting, lying, Hoop idolizing Juco, selfish, cursing, weakling. If I stopped reading, praying, and fellowshipping, I would slowly go back to this person- there is no doubt in my mind.
But Yall, when I first became a Christian, like gave up old life, I didn't care about MY plan or back-up plan, I was like "God, Let's Ride!". Play here? Cool. Read this? Cool. Stop doing this with chicks? Ok, I will try and fail, but ended up getting it. It didn't matter what happened though, because I wasw Following Him!
So, what's changed? ME. I've gotten a little softer and more comfortable. Not no mo my friends, this is a major deal and will be victory in my faith. Thanks for the reminder, I need it.
God, Let's Ride!!!!!
Great scrip there. That really helps me for my (what I like to call) "up and down the street judging". You know when you are out and about and just look or listen to insanely ignorant people, or watch teenagers be teenagers, or read bumper stickers, or anything. You feel that look creep on your face of just disgust and judgement. Looking at them like, "so sad". We need to remember that was us in the very recent past. We are all unworthy. Thank you God for accepting us anyway.
With that being said, Jules! I can't let you get away with this. We all have bible commentary with insights that we didn't first think of. We all have read books and used them as a reference on here. If we waited each week for all of us to come up with a totally new angle on scrips and ways to apply them, this keyboard would have dust on it. Nobody fully and completely has a grip on Revelations in this group, and if they did I wish they would have spoke up during this discussion. I went back and looked at your posts on Rev to see where you are getting this holier than thou personna of yourself and I don't see it. Take away something good from this. I know more people in this group read more Revelations in a week than they might have all year if you hadn't started the discussion. I know I could throw myself into that category. So, I appreciate you catching yourself on feeling pride, but don't let it hinder you from expanding this groups' horizons on tough scrip. Somebody has to bring them up.
whoa, I feel better...
Thanks Park, I appreciate the brotherly encouragement, I think I just felt like throwing a pity party and wanted to invite some peeps. As Brian said "Let's Ride with Jesus". Hey JC where you taking me now?
Ya, I talked with most everybody on here and decided that we are not coming.....
Because in the words of the Great Bob Humphreys "when you throw a pity party, the only person who's invited is YOU"
hahaha. Classic
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