to us Christians. Whyzat? Because we’ve not understood the leaven of the Pharisees that Jesus mentioned to His disciples, which is independence, which is concern for one’s own worthiness/performance/righteousness. Self-effort. Human power. God-bless-my-agenda praying, presumptuously advising the Creator about what’s best for self and others. I know how to pray.
God opposes the proud/strong/confident/independent, but gives grace/power to the humble/weak/meek/dependent. Adam and Eve wanted independence, wanted to be able to discern good from bad, so they could control their lives, captain their souls, master their fate, and we Christians have this same addiction to being strong, independent, winning, confident. We are passionately helpless-avoidant, weakness-avoidant, losing-avoidant. And so it seems wrong to us, to be weak, dependent, helpless, clueless, powerless, dumb sheep needing a Shepherd to protect us from ourselves. Loser.
Jesus offers to reverse the effects of The Curse, and retrain us in a better way to live. Problem is, we Christians live just like other mortals, and though we talk a lot about the difference Jesus makes in our lives, we are mostly like the other mortals: helpless-avoidant, weakness-avoidant, failure-avoidant, loser-avoidant. We need to be winners, for we cannot bear to be losers, in the eyes of others, or in our own eyes. Pride. Our righteousness/performance/worthiness is everything to us, and the imputed righteousness/performance/worthiness of Jesus is hardly anything to us. Unsatisfying. We want something more. Some of our own.
And so we Christians are doomed to missing the power of God on our lives, having no more joy and peace than the other mortals around us. No wonder the watching world is not beating down our church doors wanting in. There is so little of Jesus and His power, His fruit, in our lives. No contagion in our day, from us to others.
–DumbSheepDave, less concerned about feeling helpless, less fear of losing, more indifferent to winning, because folks have been praying, hoping the pre-believers around him are noticing the difference Jesus is making
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