I am an American woman raised to want to be skinny and tan and blond, with a rock hard yet slightly curvy body. I am raised to believe that I can do anything, have anything and be anything. The entertainment industry draws me in so that I think it’s funny to talk about my TV binging, and to crave show after show. While the food industry competes with the health industry (or maybe they are deceitfully working together) to make me want to fill myself with snacks and soda and wine so that I can spend a couple hours a day working it off at the gym. Working hard to earn money so that I can spend my off hours shopping so I can look like my neighbors, or hopefully better than, or having the nicest landscaping in the cul-de-sak, and the newest kitchen and bathroom remodel. Whew! Who has time to seek after God’s heart? I’m only speaking from my own personal experience, but that pursuit felt more life-sucking than life-giving.
The life I just explained is my life, when giving into the flesh, not to mention the horrendous lie many believe is that we all deserve to be happy and feel happy and follow our feelings. No matter who gets hurt. Chasing after being happy in the flesh can lead to divorce and sexual confusion, the husband feels like he wants more sex and the wife feels like she wants less (or visa-versa of course) Or maybe we are bored with our sexual partner and want to have others or many. So the road goes, indulging ourselves to our physical and emotional earthly desires. That is not what Jesus teaches or God created us to do. The American dream is not pursuing love like we were created; it is pursing self. It is leaving us in the dangerous place to say, I am who I feel like I am. I’m sorry, but if you cut off your Creator, and do not engage in relationship with him so that you can learn who you are actually created to be, you leave yourself wanting.
We, as Christ followers, are being invited to see the world through Jesus’ Kingdom eyes. To no longer be commanded by our selfish ways of survival and step into the reality that God meant for us in creation. We are invited now, to be in the Kingdom, not when we officially die to our flesh, he said we can crucify our flesh along with Christ and no longer be ruled by our flesh while we are living here on earth.
Ephesians 3:17-19, “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith: and that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”
Colossians 1:27,”to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Christ is living in us! What do we do now with our sinful behaviors?
I believe the first thing to do, and this is a scary step, but we need the Spirit to show us our sinfulness. It is imperative to recognize our faulty humanness and live in constant repentance.
I grew up with a false sense of “good”. My family were separatists. We were taught to abstain completely from alcohol, that some how things that led to sin, were sinful. So include in that dancing and movie theaters. I was taught to stand out from the crowd, which made it hard to make friends since I thought they were all bad but I was not. I condemned any friend that smoked, did tobacco or drank alcohol. They were bad, I was a good.
But only this year, when I turned 40, did I ask God to show me my sinfulness. This is the year I’m learning to die. I’m so embarrassed that I ever thought myself better than anyone! I see myself consumed with pride. Pride jumps out of me before I even know it is dwelling in me, it pops out and takes over, then anger, and resentfulness, disdain for others and a true lack of love. How was I so deceived to think that I was a good follower of Christ?
Rosario Butterfield said about sinful tendencies, “Repentance is the threshold to God. Repentance liquifies the will of the flesh. Repentance is our daily fruit, our hourly washing, our minute by minute wake-up call. Our reminder of God’s creation, Jesus’ blood, and the Holy Spirit’s comfort. Repentance is the only no-shame solution to a renewed Christian conscience because it proves the obvious, that God was right all along. To the sexual sinner, repentance feels like death, because it is. The you who once was, is no longer, even if your feelings remain.” (Openness Unhindered)
When I read that, my life made sense. Butterfield was addressing sexual sinners, and maybe it is harder for that sin, I cannot speak from experience. But when my pride rears its ugly head, I feel like I have to kill it, and it feels like I’m killing myself, to be kind to the person triggering my pride and anger. Pride covers me like a favorite warm sweater. I feel comfortable in pride. Pride has been my protective armor as long as I can remember. For example, wives are called to submit to their husbands. Just writing those word makes me feel like I’m dying a little.
For many years in my marriage, I truly believed myself to be more spiritual than my husband and therefor better at making decisions. If I decided, in my own understanding, that something was good and right, my husband did not have a chance in dissuading me of my idea. I would find scripture that supported my idea that nobody could argue. For example, just a couple months ago, I decided that our family will start going to Angola as a family for a month each year, my husband has been going twice a year lately and feels ‘daddy guilt’ each time, so he only stays 2 weeks. I thought I had the solution. If we all go, there is no ‘daddy guilt’, plus our children get to see their parents loving people in a different culture, as well as living out our passions, as well as seeing how good they have it on our side of the world. So, John purposed we go in early November, and I said great! We will stay for the whole month of November! Bonus because there are lots of school breaks in November so the teachers might be okay with the kids missing school. I start planning and my husband says, “Sorry but I can only take 2 weeks since it is so close to the time.” My heals dig in, my defenses go up, I am immediately fully clothed in an armor of pride. Come at me man!!! I say with a smile, “No problem, I will stay with the kids for the month, you can come home and work if you need.
Didn’t John see how great my plan was? Why is he not obeying! He tells me that he is a bit uncomfortable with the kids and me staying in Angola without him, and I say, “That’s too bad. You lack faith” He knows very well that I belittle the many hazard that are presented in Angola, like bug spray and prophylaxis for malaria. I frequent the markets which on a few occasions I’ve been followed by men with supposed ill intent, even if it is simply taking my bag. I keep walking in the name of faith. John calls if foolishness.
I came to the Lord in prayer and I felt him leading me, not telling me who is right and who is wrong but leading me to defer to my husband and allow him to lead me. UHG! My heart hurts just writing it. Why must I submit to a man that worries?!? The Lord opened my eyes to the man God created in his own image! A man with ‘provider’ and ‘protector’ qualities that I simply do not possess. The Lord shows me that this man that I married, is bearing our creator’s image. This is one way that the Lord protects me. UGH! I must kill of these feelings of superiority and pride. I feel like I have to die.
My pridefulness was exposed! “Oh Lord,” I cried, “help me to be the wife you intended for me to be.” Show me all the places that my pride is hiding.
That began a daily demonstration of my pride showing up. And it is taking some time for me to submit and die to that part of me. I see myself being prideful as a parent, as a friend and as a wife. Indeed, it does hurt. I finally understand (partly) what it means to die to one’s self, daily. I finally see (partly)how sinful I am. I have fallen from my Pharisaical soap box, and realized my poverty of spirit. Not a day passes that I have to repent for my sin of pride.
We are in an inner war, and Jesus knows, he also was tempted. While he was fully man, he was a man that was not born into sin. He did not have a sinful nature. Even so, he demonstrated that when sinful, selfish thoughts creep in or are planted from the enemy, we use scripture and God’s promises to fight, not feelings. The Word of God is our sword! It is important to recognize and have our feelings, but we are not to be guided by our feelings. We must practice discipline. To die to our sinful nature.
It is critical in embracing a life living beyond the physical boundaries of this world to daily die to our flesh and drink in the Spirit of God. To abide in him constantly.
“Those who obey God’s commandments remain in fellowship with him, and he with them. And we know he lives in us because the Spirit he gave us lives in us.” 1 John 3:24
As we grow in our relationship with God and begin to understand the concept of dying to self and being Spirit let, we begin to see the world, as we know it, differently. We begin to “have eyes to see” like Jesus taught. We start seeing people through his eyes, and somehow in the most beautiful way, we are transformed into a loving people that resemble Jesus.
“Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” John 13:35
Deciding to follow Jesus and pursue the will of the Father should be a physical life change, not just spiritual and ambiguous.
“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone: a new life has begun!” 2 Corinthians 5: 17
Living into this new man in Christ and dying to our sinful nature might sound like a drag. It is very hard at first for many. Dying is no fun, but as our sinful nature slowly is exposed and we are transformed, and we learn how to abide in Christ—everything changes. It will one day not even feel like a sacrifice when you know what you are trading up for. It will be all you want to do. Learning to abide in God is nourishing for your soul.