Living with God at the center is the good and sane life. It’s better to enjoy the warmth of the sun than to light a bonfire in our home. It’s better to reflect the glory of God than to be consumed by the empty pursuit of our own glory.I have not wanted to outline this story because it is just grotesque in the extreme. It’s so much better to be a minor character in God’s story than to try to write our own script. Meanwhile, we owe him everything as our Creator and Redeemer. He doesn’t owe us anything, not even explanations. But the bigger reality is that we’re there for God. Of course there is a sense in which God is there for us. He’s a lovely piece of our story, but we still think of it as our story. We look for him when we need him and expect him to be grateful when we serve him. We think of our lives as a story and, if we’re Christians, God is one of the characters in our story. Quote by Tim Chester, “Our problem is that we think of ourselves as being at the center of the world. Spend some time in prayer, repenting and asking for grace to change. Is God using a trial to show you your pride or need for greater humility? In what areas of your life are you tempted to exalt yourself? (think of how you are at work or school, with your spouse or children). One lexicon defined this word has ‘having an undue sense of one’s importance’ – I think that describes humanity, ‘an undue sense of one’s importance.’ My problem isn’t that I think I am better than everyone else, my problem is that I often live as if I am more important than everyone else.”
By this I don’t mean simply, ‘I think I am so great… let me exalt myself,’ rather, we are constantly tempted to exalt our opinions, exalt our sense of importance, and maybe most consistently exalt our desires. Most of us don’t think we are conceited because we are smart enough not to sound boastful, however if we are honest with ourselves, we are constantly tempted to exalt ourselves.
“So the danger here… isn’t simply the ugly personality trait of being a bit arrogant, it is the idolatrous and rebellious robbing God of his glory of raising ourselves up so that we become the greatest object of our own affections of living as if we are the center of our own self-made universe. This week we look back at Pastor Kim’s sermon on 2 Corinthians 12:1-10. May you be like a tree planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in its season ( Psalm 1:3). In pursuit of this kind of blessed life, we briefly review the sermon from the previous Sunday. Psalm 1describes the blessed person as one who has dug deep into God’s Word, making it the source of his daily meditation.
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