Over at The Gate, Steve asks, What are some symptoms or indicators that we’ve started thinking the Christian life, and/or the Bible, is more about ourselves and what we do than it is about Jesus?
My contribution:
Ever heard “The Bible is God’s love letter to you”? There’s truth in that. Heck, on the face of it, it is true. God is love, and His word is revelation for the purpose of His being revealed to us. But somehow we take the revelation of His love for us and mistake that for us being especially lovable, when the really amazing thing about it is that He loves us unfailingly despite our being especially unlovable. It becomes about us, not Him.
I think one symptom or indicator that we’ve started thinking the Christian life is more about us than Jesus is when we actually start treating Scripture as insufficient. I do believe the Spirit speaks to us, but the primary way He does that is in illuminating written revelation to us. We all believe this, but most of us, myself included, conveniently forget it in daily life.
I’ve sat in Bible studies where person after person laments that “God isn’t speaking to me” and we all have Bibles open not six inches from our noses. I think that’s an indication we are not satisfied with all that God has given us to be complete for every good work; we still want something special, something just for us, something that validates our self-interest.
And as anybody who spends any time in the Bible should know, the Scriptures are pretty much the antidote for self-interest.
(Cross-posted at The Thinklings)
1 comment:
I absolutely agree with you. I think this is in the same vain as people constantly searching for "purpose". What ever our current circumstances there is "purpose" all around us, but are we willing to accept what it is, and more importantly what God may be asking of us?
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