Don't Take It Personally Part II

After meditating for a minute I began to see another side and angle to not taking “things” personally:  God versus sin.  What do I mean?  Well, God is holy.  Period.  Sin is not holy.  Hmmmm.  They are not friends in any way, never have been and never will be.  You will never catch God playing kickball or volleyball with sin on anyone’s playground or back yard.  So wherever “sin” is, God’s holiness is in opposition to it.  Don’t take it personally.  It’s a principle like gravity.  Gravity neither loves nor hates.  It just is. J  But God loves and is in love.  Keep reading, please.

Maybe it has taken me a minute to clearly understand this, but I’ve learned that this means no matter who we are or where we are on this planet, if we “wear” sin like a garment or a brooch or a banner in our heart, soul, body, life, decisions, life-style etc. it attracts God’s anger and judgment like a homing device.  Period.  Don’t take it personally, just get rid of the sin.  Sin marks us and keeps us on the radar – bleep, blip, bleep, blip.  Hmmmm.  So because God loves His creation, that would be you and me, for what reason would He create something He hates?  (He didn’t.  Read Genesis 1, and John 3:16) Even the satan was not always the way he is now.  He had a proper name which was lovely in itself – Lucifer.  But because of the pride he had within him he fell in love with himself and desired to overthrow God, thus his lovely name fell with him and became stereotyped as evil, representing his nature. (Ezekiel 28:13-19) Too bad we can’t separate the stigma of his name from what he is.  Moving on . . .

Then humans, God’s love creatures, appeared on the radar of Lucifer for destruction.  How would he do it?  He would infect them and afflict them with the same malady he had and has, which resulted in his being thrown down from his place in God’s presence:  Pride.  All sin stems from pride.  Pride is not an emotion, but its presence is and can be revealed (and concealed) through, and by our emotions.  Once we know what pride is, then we will know what it is not, and we will be able to recognize it when we “see” it.

Pride in a nutshell is the belief that “I can do all things through ME, MYSelf, and I”.  My gifts, talents, strengths, education, knowledge, wisdom, beauty, physique, street smarts, etc. can and will get me “there” (wherever “there” is) without the need of any outside help – except to do the foot work of my “commands”.   (My wish is your every command.  LOL!!) But this is no laughing matter.  Pride can be displayed through arrogance and haughtiness, but it can also be hidden through a meek and quiet disposition.  One can be full of pride, missing God’s will and desires while having a submissive, “I can get along with everybody” persona.  How?  Because pride doesn’t need our emotions and emotional expressions to exist within us.  It just needs us to believe we can do all things in and of and by ourselves, not needing God’s permission, neither needing to seek His heart or will first, not needing to wait for God’s provision and direction, and certainly not needing to surrender our choices and decisions to Someone else’s omniscience i.e. God’s.   You get the picture.

When we are diseased with pride (in any area of our character and lives) the only voice we can hear is our own, and because we will always tell ourselves what we want to hear, we will believe we’re hearing the voice of God.  “I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM!  WE ALL SCREAM FOR I SCREAM!  (I know, the last one is supposed to say “Ice Cream”.  Remember, it’s my blog.  J  But you hear the point right?)

The Bible says that “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6)  For years I thought humility meant saying “yes” to everyone with a nice voice and a smile to keep everybody happy.  But then I could not understand why if everyone around me was happy, why wasn’t God blessing me with His promises?  Because God wasn’t happy, and He wasn’t happy because He was not being considered first in the equation, i.e. in all of my life’s choices and decisions.  “In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.” (Proverbs 3:6)  “Seek ye first the kingdom of God (a relationship with God through Jesus the Christ) and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33) And to be honest with you, I am glad to have finally learned that humility has nothing to do with making others happy, because with or without a humble personality, no one can make and keep everybody happy.  Not even God tries to keep everyone happy, so who did I think I was to try to accomplish such an impossibility with and in my own limited capacity, and also since God did not give me that never ending homework assignment?  God is not obligated to accept and be happy with the things we decide to do on our own apart from Him and His first-rate counsel and direction.

So what does humility look like?  Humility means believing, knowing, and living as ones reality on a daily basis, the truth that I can’t do anything on my own.  I cannot breathe, speak, see, hear, taste, or touch without God.  I cannot swallow, blink, walk, talk, clap, dance, or chew gum (without chewing my tongue into pieces) without the Spirit of God flowing and living in my spirit keeping me alive.  Knowing all of this, how much more should I (we) realize that I cannot and should not try to make important (or even seemingly insignificant) life’s decisions without first seeking God, and then waiting to hear what He will say to me?  Yet we do it all the time, bypassing the “Mr. Know It All of the Universe” Who knows the end from the beginning.   And we wonder why our plans don’t pan out?  Or maybe they begin with a promise but end horribly.

Being humble doesn’t mean we will get all the answers (or any answers) in advance, neither does it mean that we will never run into trouble.  However, a life of pride doesn’t afford us these benefits either.  On the contrary – being humble and being proud can and will lead us into challenges and problems, for Job said “man is born for trouble.”  J  But the difference is:  Who is leading your life, and thus helping you (or not, depending on the WHO) to decide how and how well you will deal with the good, the bad, and the uglies of life.  Knowing that the One who knows all things in advance is leading our lives can give us peace in the midst of the storm, air conditioning in the fiery furnace, vegetarian lions (vegans) in a lion’s den.

Jesus Christ died on the cross personally because God the Father loves all of us personally, therefore He does take our sin personally.  However, He judges all sin impersonally because all sin is sin.  Only God can do that.  Yet He takes into consideration each person’s level of knowledge of right and wrong, maturity and ability to know Him when He judges our sins, for it is not His desire to destroy us, but to be reunited and reconciled with us in a love relationship.  Jesus calls that having “eternal life” – yes it’s for the “here and now” not just the “there and then”.  God carries us closely inside His heart NOW because He wants us to spend our THEN with Him.  So the next time you hear people complaining about what appears or seems to be the wrath and judgment of God, if you can get a word in edgewise, just tell them “don’t take it personally”; unless of course they need to.

Peace.