Researching for Bible study today, I came across a sermon on Romans 11. This quote struck me:
"You can be proud or you can be Presbyterian, but you can’t be both consistently. If you’ve really seen God’s grace it always has the quality of humbling you in the dust."
This is something I'll be meditating on this week. If only I could really grasp that I was saved by grace -- that there was nothing smarter, better or fresher tasting about me than anyone else, that it was totally a free act of God's mercy. . . I think it would be life-changing. Of course, I believe it already. But I want this belief to sink deeper into my heart. It seems to me there's a cure here for spiritual arrogance, both in my relationship with God and with non-Christians.
Posted by Discoshaman at janvier 21, 2005 01:02 AM | TrackBack
Disco,
The cure for spiritual arrogance is humiliation.
I tell my clients that they can be humble, or they can be humiliated. It's their choice, but it's one or the other. There is no Option C.
I confess that I have often been spiritually arrogant and it is very disturbing to realize it, to realize the extent of it and the distastefulness of it to our Father.
Posted by: Marty in Oregon at janvier 21, 2005 04:07 AMI think you could substitute any denomination for "Presbyterian." I'm slowly, over the decades, coming to agree with C.S. Lewis, that pride is "the utmost evil."
..this battle is our test..to seek; what would Jesus do is our question.He watches our response..the road might be longer,it might be harder, but its the road he hopes we will choose..
Posted by: Rob_NC at janvier 22, 2005 03:54 PMI've been reading C.H. Spurgeon's thoughts on prayer entitled "The Throne of Grace." (One of 54 essays collected in "Spurgeon on Prayer and Spiritual Warfare")
Here is a sample from just one paragraph --- "When any one of us has presented his best prayer before God, if he saw it as God sees it, there is no doubt he would make great lamentation over it. There is enough sin in the best prayer that was ever prayed to secure its being cast away from God. But it is not a throne of justice, I say again, and here is the hope for our lame, limping supplications. Our gracious King does not maintain a stately etiquette in His court like that which has been observed by princes among men, where a little mistake or a flaw would secure the petitioner's being dismissed with disgrace. Oh no. The faulty cries of His children are not severely criticised by Him. The Lord High Chamberlain of the palace above, our Lord Jesus Christ, takes care to alter and amend every prayer before He presents it, and He makes the prayer perfect with His perfection and prevailing with His own merits."