Listening to a song by the Christian metal band Stryper inspired this thought. Here are the words to the song first of all:
Saturday night's a lie, I follow every cue
Sunday is sanctified, I smile and take the pew
Monday it's back to school - Am I learning, not at all
Tuesday and Wednesday, Thursday, Friday I just crawl
Seeds that were growing have been dried up by my flesh
I walk the walk and talk the talk but where's the rest
I could have everything even what's behind the stars
But I built my prison without windows, without bars
Gotta fight, gotta stop living a lie
Gotta fall, gotta lay down and die
Gotta stand and run to the other side
Gotta live or it's Murder By Pride
Sunday is sanctified, I smile and take the pew
Monday it's back to school - Am I learning, not at all
Tuesday and Wednesday, Thursday, Friday I just crawl
Seeds that were growing have been dried up by my flesh
I walk the walk and talk the talk but where's the rest
I could have everything even what's behind the stars
But I built my prison without windows, without bars
Gotta fight, gotta stop living a lie
Gotta fall, gotta lay down and die
Gotta stand and run to the other side
Gotta live or it's Murder By Pride
Watching people, including the one in the mirror, and it's easy to see that we live for ourselves too much. It seems like all we care about at times is how we feel or what makes us feel better about our life, our lifestyles, our thoughts, and our actions. As the song says our seeds (our ways of life) have been dried up by the flesh. The flesh causes us to be blind. We start to focus on our own wants and desires of the flesh and this in turn causes us to lose focus on living right. We build our own prisons. We live secret lives. We live lies.
When we live for ourselves we do these things:
When we live for ourselves we do these things:
- We challenge God's word and authority. This causes us to think less of moral standards or even lose a standard to live by. When standards of God are lost then humanity suffers chaos. A world without Godly standards is called 'hell".
- We exalt ourselves over the wisdom of God. Humanity that can't even control their own finances, marriages, and other issues in life think they can actually get away with making decisions without God or at least the wisdom He has passed on in the Scriptures? What makes us think we are right?
- We feel we are the most important person in existence. People do not listen to wisdom. They feel just because they think it then it must be right. Everyone has a closed mind or turn a blind eye to what they are doing because if they are proven wrong then they have to change.
All of these can be summed up into one word, pride. One being did that a long time ago and a special place has been created for him. Pride came before his fall and pride will come before our fall.
Sometimes we have to put our own desires away. When we live secret lives we not only lie to the world but we lie to ourselves. Yet, we keep going on living that way. We have to stop living a lie. Just because things feel okay to do or we no longer feel bad about some of our actions does not meant that we are living right. We all need certain standards to live by. Just because God's morals are not what we feel are for everybody does not mean His moral standards are wrong. We may think it's okay to release our anxieties with alcohol, but it's not. We may think it's okay to indulge ourselves with "feel good" activities because it has been accepted by the world, but it's not. We may think our wrongful sexual desires are okay to pursue because it makes us feel good and wanted, but it's not. We may think it's okay to get revenge or to react in a vengeful way because we feel people deserve it, but it's not. Just because certain things make us happy and/or we do not understand why God says certain things are wrong does not mean we do not have to abide by His standards. Sometimes we have to lay down our flesh and die to this world. If we keep on living for the flesh then we let our pride murder us.
Good write up. We will not find fullness of joy in fleshly (non godly) desires.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't go so far to say that we shouldn't desire our good or happiness in an absolute sense. We just need to know the right way to find it. The good news is that if we lose our life for Christ's sake we WILL find it.
In Christ is fullness of joy, so much more than living for the flesh. Pride I believe is thinking too highly of ourselves, and not really grasping the idea that we are a part of a larger plan. The greatest joy is to be a apart of the big picture (God's plan, God's body), no matter to what degree.
There is so much that we can do in Christ's name for Him, for others and for "ourselves" in which we can find fullness of joy.
Yes. I did not mean that we are not allowed to pursue joy, happiness, or fun activities. But some only pursue these things instead of God, and let's face it, most activities that replace God are ones we probably shouldn't be doing anyway. Thanks for the clarification.
ReplyDeleteSweet as, sorry if I came across a bit harsh. I never thought you would claim that seeking joy is wrong lol. I sometimes wonder whether we (Christians) can occasionally focus too much on what we can't or shouldn't do, rather than on what we can do :)
ReplyDeleteWe just had an awesome Bible study recently where we discussed the purpose of struggles in life. We came to the liberating joy that no matter what we may encounter, God has a better, bigger plan than what we could ever imagine.
Focusing on the joyous resilience in life that we have in God has been on my mind recently :)
Never took it as harsh. It's exactly what needed to be called out and mentioned. Too many times people think God limits who we are and Christians have a sad existence because all we try and do is live a perfect life by living the "ten do nots" instead of the ten commandments. Joy is seekable. Eternal joy is given by grace, we can't earn. Some see our faith as a prison but we know it sets us free.
ReplyDeleteWe are permitted to do anything but not all things are beneficial. We just have to be careful what we do but not stop having fun or joy in our lives.
God doesn't want us to suffer, but only willing to suffer (for lack of better words). Being humble and suffering are too different things. He doesn't want us to be duds or to be sad all the time. My point in this post though is that if all we do is think of ourselves we exalt ourselves and that is wrong. Just because things make us feel good does not men it is actually good. People then think God is wrong just because we lowered our standards and we have been told what we do is wrong (sin). No one wants to hear or admit that, but we have to if we want to live right.
Hi Tim,
ReplyDeleteI have been through your blogs and have left a comment regarding this post on Christian Thoughts. Now I see you have the same post here which is more recently published, so I leave my comment here too.
I have to say that before I became born again many things that I did to satisfy my carnal mind brought short lived happiness and often guilt. Since I have started to have my mind renewed in Christ through the Holy Spirit enlightening the word of God I have come to know what true happiness is. God's ways are far superior to mans' ways. When everybody is right in their own eyes it can produce chaos.
Yes. Some strangers emailed me one day and invited me to post here as well. And from day one these young people have gained my respect and admiration with their faith. Great group here. Actually they are only strangers in the fact that we have never met but we talked on other blogs before. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on both sites. Amazing how the egos from the other site kept going, huh, Brenda...
ReplyDelete