Pride
Confession
Dang it dear reader, I want to share something with you and I am struggling with the start up. I have a confession to make and since this is a publishable work, I am displaying, yet again, my inner workings, and how God is not only convicting me of my sin, but asking me to expose it too: yikes, so annoying and somehow necessary at the exact same time.
Out, or safe?
Before I tell you the sin, I will give you some background. I don’t know if you have noticed, but there is a line of demarcation that has caused a great divide amongst people:
covid is real vs covid is a hoax
Seems there was a schoolyard pick of players and we each got relegated to teams without seeing the captains or even the game we were about to play. While in the game, we have been given uniforms with matching hats, or masks, depending on the team designation, and at this point, a scoreboard has visualized. While I still feel a part of a team, I have decided to take myself out of the game, and head on up to the nose bleed seats, the bleaches that will give me a slightly better view of the playing field.
Many I love
The painful part of this game: is seeing many I love on the opposing team; alas dear reader, this was only disheartening until very recently. In major league sports, there are always trades, and players shift and move from teams, and this situation is no different. We can start out on one, and move to another. This is were, when willing, we give up our false sense of security, the pride that has us believing something that is completely and utterly a lie, and replacing it with truth.
Clearing a path
To be clear, and I am clearing a path here in my own mind and heart, and concomitantly, my soul, I am not talking about the covid divide any longer. The covid divide is a symptom of a sin, a grand battle that rages in the ether, the unseen realms. Pride, as character crucifying culprit is causing the divide: we are guilty dear reader, you and I, of taking our eyes off of the Saviour, and placing our bets on ourselves, and the teams we are playing for.
Here, l share my sin
As a Christian, I have intermittently clung to the belief that by sharing the gospel, ad nauseam, with those that are repelled by it, that I can save souls. While I am commissioned to share the Good News, I am reminded:
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Now for the sin of my fellow man, those that intermittently cling to the belief that they can save others from certain physical death, protecting them from themselves:
“In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind” (Job 12:10).
Thankfully
Thankfully dear reader, I have not a fear this day, for my friends that have taken to the team they were placed on when this drama first began. This is the scripture I have come to appreciate, as I admitted my own guilt in this farce that satan wants us all to engage in, battling one another as though our lives depended on winning one against the other, as though we are enemies:
“For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the Day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:5-6).
I exhort you
I exhort you dear one, to do as I have done. Refocus your sights on The One and Only God and the scripture he has so generously, graciously commended to our keeping. We are self-determined beings that happily take ourselves down a road of and to, destruction, when left to our own prideful selfish ways. It is when we submit ourselves to the Sovereign through Jesus Christ the Saviour, that we see who is in charge, and that the game has been called, with Grace winning every time.
