Monthly Archives: September 2011

Spiritual snobs are everywhere.  Have you seen any lately?  Do you know what a spiritual snob looks like?  At times, you may see one looking at you in the mirror!

We are all spiritual snobs by nature; it’s woven deep into our sinful DNA.  We like to judge others on everything from lifestyle to looks . . . money to ministry . . . personality to profession.  We spend far too much time searching for and speaking about the speck in the eye of another without ever acknowledging and addressing the plank in our own eye.  It’s so easy to disregard our own “respectable” sins and shortcomings when we compare them to the “repulsive” sins of others.  We find it easy to look down on other Christians who don’t appear to be doing as well as we are or demonstrate the kind of commitment we do.

• We look down on other Christians who are inconsistent in their church attendance.
• We look down on other Christians whom we watch out of the corner of our eye and see that they let the offering plate pass by without adding to it.
• We look down on other Christians who ask for personal prayer for things we aren’t currently struggling with.
• We look down on other Christians who don’t seem to have control over their children during the church service.
• We look down on other Christians who spend more time talking about the good life instead of the godly life.
• We look down on other Christians who watch movies we won’t watch and listen to music we don’t listen to.
• We look down on other Christians who rarely, if ever, find the time to show up for service projects.
• We look down on other Christians who don’t carry their Bible to every activity like we do . . . even though we have no intention of reading from it.
• We look down on other Christians who don’t believe everything we believe and belong to different denominations than we do.

The list, of course, is endless, and as we busily engage in looking down our hearts harden, our faith falters, and our love lessens.  Unfortunately, spiritual snobbery is something that affects us all—some of us more than others, but we are all affected.

C.S. Lewis rightly observed, “A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you’re looking down, you can’t see something that’s above you.”  Funny thing about looking down on other Christians . . . it leaves us very little time to look up to Jesus!  And therein lies the key unlocking the prison door of spiritual snobbery: looking up to Jesus. 

The author of Hebrews makes it clear in which direction our eyes should be focused.  We should always be “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (12:2).  The apostle Paul provides a wonderful admonishment for everyone who finds it easy to look down rather than up.  “By the grace given to me,” he wrote, “I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he should think.  Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith to each one” (Romans 12:3). 

You may remember that two men went up to the Temple to pray in Luke 18; we need to be more like the tax collector who looked up to God and asked for mercy than the Pharisee who thanked God that he was not like other men.   

“By the grace of God I am what I am” Paul wrote to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 15:10).  We all must remember that if there is anything we are doing well, it is only because God has given us the grace to do it.  It is not because we are bigger, better, brighter, or more spiritual than others.

This is why we need to keep on preaching the Gospel to ourselves every day.  We will overcome our default mode of spiritual snobbery only by keeping the Gospel before us.  Preaching the Gospel to ourselves will keep us grounded in the glorious truth about God (infinitely holy) and the dreary truth about ourselves (incredibly sinful).  The more we understand these truths, the more we will look to our Savior for all that we need to give our lives meaning and significance, rather than looking to compare ourselves to our neighbor. 

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

Storms are a fact of life on this side of glory:  sickness and disease . . . suffering and disappointment . . . loss of employment . . . financial reversal . . . loneliness . . . wayward children . . . marriage difficulties . . . shattered dreams . . . death.  And these are just a few of the storms we may face!

So how have you been doing at weathering the storms of life that you’ve been facing lately?  When was the last time you thought, “WHERE IS GOD?!” as the waves of challenge were crashing over you and the boat you had been smoothly sailing?

When [Jesus] got into the boat, his disciples followed him.  And behold! A severe storm arose in the sea, so that the boat was covered by the waves; but he himself was sleeping.  Then they went and woke him by saying, “Lord! Save us! We are perishing!  So he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?”  After he got up, he rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became absolutely calm.  Then the men were astonished, saying, “What kind of a man is this One, that even the winds and the sea obey him?”  (Matthew 8:23-27)

Many of the disciples were professional fishermen; the Sea of Galilee was their workplace, and this certainly was not their first encounter with a sudden storm.  The Sea of Galilee was notorious for unexpected, violent storms, as winds swept down from the mountain elevations over the waters of the sea.  Yet the disciples were filled with great fear—that had to be a bad storm! And all the while, our Lord, exhausted from His works of ministry and the press of the crowds, lay sound asleep.

And what did the disciples do with their fear during this serious storm?  It is the most important lesson we need to learn in this life: they went to Jesus. 

This is the first thing we should do as children of the Most High God.  When the storm winds begin to blow, we must turn to Jesus.  We cry out to Jesus, just as the disciples did: “Lord! Save us! We are perishing!”  Indeed, the Lord invites us to, “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me” (Psalm 50:15). 

I take great comfort in the fact that the disciples had to wake Jesus.  Our Lord was not stressed out, startled, or surprised by the storm that was blowing.  He was sound asleep, resting with complete confidence in His relationship with His Father in heaven, He who never slumbers nor sleeps (Psalm 121:3-4).  What a tremendous picture of “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7) for us to remember when we find ourselves in the storms of life!

I want to point out something that might easily be overlooked.  Jesus was with His disciples in the middle of the storm.  He is with us too.  Regardless of whatever storm winds may be blowing, Jesus is with us.  Jesus is not some “fair-weather” friend, found only when the sky is blue and the clouds are fleecy.  He is right there with us in the middle of every storm.  He has promised us, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18).  Oh, what a friend we have in Jesus! 

Jesus has been with you in every storm you have ever faced.  Every storm is used by God for His glory and for your good.  And yet we live in a fallen and broken world where some storms never fully pass.  Do you remember the story of the apostle Paul and his “thorn” storm? 

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  (2 Corinthians 12:8-10)

God does not calm every storm, but He is in control of all of them.  God knew the thorn was best for Paul, and He knows what storms are best left blowing in our lives too.  And one day we will face the inevitable storm that comes to us all in the valley of the shadow of death.  And in this final storm we will ever face, Jesus will be with us and will deliver us from it.  When we breathe our last and are absent from this body, we will be present with our Lord. 

 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

”O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” . . .

Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

(1 Corinthians 15:54-56, 58)

The Good News of the Gospel tells us that we are not only washed clean by the blood of the Lamb, but we have been purchased with that same precious blood.  Because we are His, we can face any storm wind that blows with the confident assurance that He is with us every step of the way.

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

“I still have many things to say to you,” Jesus said to His disciples, “but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12). Our Lord was not speaking solely for the benefit of those who were listening at that moment; He was teaching all of us a biblical truth: God is not finished with us yet!  Now, if you are anything like me (a great sinner in daily need of an even greater Savior), that is not only a source of unimaginable comfort, but of unbelievable freedom. 

Because God is not finished with you yet, you are in a continual state of process and progression—not perfection.  You don’t know everything you are going to know.  You don’t think everything you are going to think.  You don’t say everything you are going to say.  You don’t do everything you are going to do.  You are not everything you are going to be.  And because of the promised reality of what you will one day be—“conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29)—you can rest in the reality of your freedom today.   

• You are free to enjoy.
• You are free to explore.
• You are free to risk.
• You are free to relax.
• You are free to dream.
• You are free to desire.
• You are free to love.
• You are free to laugh.
• You are free to sing.
• You are free to sorrow.
• You are free to forgive.
• You are free to fail.

That’s right!  You are even free to fail.  This must be true if we are not yet perfected.  Perfection is the only state where there is no failure, and since we are not yet perfected, we will fail.  Do you remember when Jesus told Peter he was free to fail?  You might be thinking, “I don’t remember any story in the Bible where Jesus told anyone he was free to fail.”  Well, stay with me for just a minute, and you may be surprised!  Just hours before he was betrayed and arrested, Jesus was speaking to His disciples. Suddenly, he turned and spoke directly to Peter:

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”

Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.”

Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.”  (Luke 22:31-34)

When Jesus told Peter he was going to deny Him three times that night, He was telling Peter he was free to fail . . . and fail he did!  After promising to die to keep from failing his Lord, Peter did fail Jesus three times, but the story of his failure doesn’t end there.  Jesus didn’t forget about Peter, and Jesus didn’t forsake him.  After the resurrection, Jesus restored, recommissioned, and resent Peter to advance the cause of His Kingdom. 

The freedom we experience in the Gospel is hard to believe.  And let me say this; if it’s not hard to believe, it’s not the freedom of the Gospel!  Because Jesus came to set the captives free, everyone who belongs to Jesus is free.  And in that freedom, there is even freedom to fail.  Regardless of where this finds you, whether you are coming out of a failure or getting ready to stumble into another one, fear not!  And when you fail, remember that Jesus is waiting to do the same to you that he did for Peter—to forgive you, restore you, recommission you, and resend you—time and time again!

This is the Gospel.  This is grace for your race.  NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!