When Proving Yourself Doesn't Work

My family loves athletics. Two of my younger brothers are tall guys and have a pretty good advantage in the field. My youngest brother, though, has a problem because he's 3-4 inches shorter than all the other boys his age. Naturally, it's a sensitive issue for the 11-year-old. Every time we play sports, he tries so hard to prove that he has "it" in him, that he can be just as good as the other boys his age. And nearly every time (if he doesn't do well) he ends up incredibly discouraged because he just can't match up.

He's not the alone, though. "Proving ourselves" is an occupation most of mankind enters into. We want to show what we're made of, that we can be as athletic, as together, as smart, as musical, as good-looking, as talented, as eloquent as our peers. The problem is that we can't always match up, and the chances are, there's always going to be somebody who ranks better on the scoreboard. What are you going to do? Are you going to spend you life beating yourself up about it and working as hard as you can to measure up?

If "who you are" is built on any of those things, you'll be doing exactly that. You'll be working so hard to prove that you can do it, and you'll kill yourself when you can't because you failed at your unspoken goal in life.
There's only one thing you can build your identity on that will never let you down and will enable you to rejoice when others score higher than yourself. That is Jesus Christ. When we realize that he achieved for us everything we really need, we can learn to appreciate the gifts of others for the sheer joy of the gift, and stop sizing ourselves up against them. Yes, we can work hard to cultivate our God-given gifts and invest our talents. But we no longer have to prove ourselves because we can be satisfied in the Gospel and marvel in the fact that Jesus took care of our greatest need at the cross. And when you place your confidence in that, and you can throw proving yourself to the wind.

Happy Giver

Here's a few interesting thoughts on the verse, "God loves a cheerful giver." (2 Cor 9:7b)

"God's graciousness toward us reproduces graciousness in us."

"God loves a cheerful giver because he is himself a cheerful giver."

"Various faulty motives may inspire us to give generously, but only a real appreciation of God's grace can inspire us to give 'cheerfully'."

(Paul Barnett, The Message of 2 Corinthians.)

I'm really challenged to evaluate my motives. Do I give because it's my duty, or do I give because I've been given so generously to? Do I genuinely give cheerfully, be it money or even time and energy, in light of how freely I have received? It's something to think about...

Side Note: I'm a huge commentary fan. If you have the opportunity, grab one and go through a book with it. They have really helped to broaden my perspective and give insight to passages that I never would have realized on my own. I really like the "Let's Study" and "The Bible Speaks Today" commentaries.
Just my two cents. :)

The Key to Your Thinking

It was my mom's birthday yesterday, so my sister Christa and I took her out to lunch. It was a nice time to hang out, eat and enjoy each other's company without the regular distractions. Eventually, (don't worry, we talked about normal stuff, too) we started discussing the sin of thinking falsely about yourself, whether too highly or too low. Putting yourself above others, or always putting yourself down. Either way you look at it, it's thinking about yourself. And either way you look at it, it's pride.

Oddly enough, this morning the first (ok, second) verse I read was about how the wicked & proud man is always flattering and thinking highly of himself. It brought to mind one of my favorite "Kellerisms", as my dad calls them:
Humility is not thinking more of yourself and it's not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less.

Jesus lived this. And He encouraged us to do the same when He called us to lead and serve by becoming as the youngest in Luke 22:26. (I don't know about you, but at my house, the youngest is pretty much the slave of all). And to do that, you have to start thinking a lot less about yourself, your rights, your comforts, and your desires.

That's hard stuff right there. I'm not really envisioning a nice cakewalk. But praise God we do have the example and the empowerment through Him who utterly forgot Himself that we might find ourselves in Him.

What I learned from WG09

This last weekend my 3 of my siblings and I had the amazing opportunity to attend the Worship God conference put on by Sovereign Grace ministries in Gaithersburg, MD. It's difficult to process everything that happened during those 3 and 1/2 days. Some 1,600 worshipers gathered to learn about worship, musicianship, glorifying God, and the purpose of the church; essentially, we learned about the Gospel. And we sang about it, people desperate for God and thankful for what He miraculously accomplished at the cross.
What God really taught me there (out of the numerous things I brought home to think about) will forever challenge and encourage me:

I am a proud person, but already I knew that much. The scary thing was I had no idea just how much pride penetrated my life. I didn't realize how much my actions were dictated by a "me first" attitude. I was even proud about the gifts I'd been given, thinking I'd done something to earn them. I thought I saw clearly; little did I realize how blind I really was.

But what's even more crazy is that my Savior saw me in my self-centered, self-righteous, Hyde-ish state, and loved me even so. He loved and sacrificed all for a selfish sinner who thought she didn't need him.

God taught me that I have nothing to offer, I have nothing to give. My feeble attempts at righteousness disintegrate in my hands as I behold the awesome, sustaining love and abundant forgiveness given at the cross. And He reminded me once again that the only place to find true joy is in a loss of me and a gain of Christ.

"The only happiness for man is a happiness focused solely on God and His glory... [Radical] happiness is the end of human exaltation and the birth of human exultation in God." -John Piper, WG09

It's true. I saw it lived out by the leaders of the conference, amazingly humble men who were 100% focused on God and constantly disregarding any cause for boasting except the cross of Christ. And now it's my goal to empty myself in grateful love. I know right now I'm going to fail. But by God's grace I'm going to keep trying and trying, and remember that that grace is always available and His forgiveness is free.

"The pursuit of joy is not optional, it's mandated. We're duty-bound to pursue joy." -Piper

And the way to do that is to get lost in God and the Gospel.

Here's a few pics we took along the way: Self pic with our new friends from PA. A great family we connected with from CA. Awesome people.And of course, we had to hit DC while we were there. :)

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: War of the Selves

Every human being, old or young, man or woman, has a deep-rooted problem. Every person you’ve ever met has something wrong with him or her. Just what is that problem? Robert Louis Stevenson accurately details this human dilemma is in his classic tale, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Dr. Jekyll was a respectable man. He spent much of his time researching for cures to diseases that plagued his fellow Englishmen and entertaining old friends in his comfortable and luxurious London home. In public, Jekyll faithfully donned the cap of pure uprightness and genuine good nature. But strangely, he was not always this way. When left to himself, he revealed a disconcerting split personality. Yes, in public he was the noble Dr. Jekyll, but in secret, he realized he was also an evil man. This second personality cared little for the health or needs of others and relished in wickedness. Yet Jekyll was fully both personalities. For whatever persona he donned, he felt completely himself. Finally came the day when he realized: “With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence… I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two… I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both.”1 He was radically good, yet radically evil.

Finally Jekyll, desperate and weary of the good and evil within him constantly warring against each other and each ruining things for the other, concocted a potion that he hoped would separate his two natures. If the potion resulted as he intended, he would be able to fully be himself in whatever capacity he chose, and have no compunction of conscience either way. But when Dr. Jekyll drank that fateful mixture and wholly embodied the evil side of him, Mr. Hyde, he freakishly realized that he was far more evil than he ever thought. He’d separated the good in him from the evil; he could relish in his badness with no guilty conscience, only to drink the potion again that would reform back to the respectable, upright Dr. Jekyll. He could be rid of Hyde at any moment, and with him, all the guilt and repercussions from the terrors he committed. But before long, his good side grew weak and he could no longer control his evil nature. It began to transform his good to his evil self involuntarily until Mr. Hyde overpowered and finally destroyed the helpless and contrite Dr. Jekyll, killed by his perverse fascination.

Every person you’ve ever met incarnates the same sad plight of Dr. Jekyll. We have not one self, but two. We have two natures, one fundamentally good, and the other far more evil than we ever dared imagine. Even the psalmist of old dictates the contradiction of our soul, writing here of the glory and honor of man2, and there of the absolute wretchedness we know we patron3. Who will win the war between the selves? Can we escape the awful fate of Dr. Jekyll?
We’re not the people we’re supposed to be. We’re not crowned with glory and honor, as the psalmist wrote. But there was One Man who was. Take a look at Jesus, the ultimate human being. He was made a little lower than the angels and crowned with glory and honor4. He lived the definitive perfect life we were supposed to live, but He didn’t stop there. He then took the punishment we had reckoned as Mr. Hyde, and died the death we were supposed to die. He was the ultimate Dr. Jekyll, but He became hideous for us5.

Jesus Christ paid for radical evil through radical good. And He lost everything for us, He, the only One who actually deserved what he’d surrendered. Through Him, we are crowned with glory and honor. In that mysterious truth we find the key to winning the war of the selves: We look to him, the ultimate Dr. Jekyll, and fact that he lost his beauty and glory for us. We build our identity not on ourselves, or our beauty, or glory, or career, or spouse, or talent; that’s looking to something other than God and that’s how we became Hyde in the first place. We instead look to Jesus, and when we truly understand that glorious mystery of the perfectly good taking the punishment of the perfectly evil, it becomes our beauty and glory and identity and transforms the way we live. We were so bad that he had to die, but we’re so loved that he was glad to die6. Let that penetrate your worldview and change the course of your life.

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1. Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
2. Psalm 8:5, Hebrews 2:9
3. Psalm 14:1-3
4. Hebrews 2:7
5. Dr. Timothy Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, The Doctrine of Human Nature
6. Dr. Timothy Keller, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, The Doctrine of Human Nature