Warning: Painfully, blatantly transparent post ahead!
One of the truths God has pounded into my soul along the walk is this: we Christians all have different pitfalls as well as different spiritual gifts. I was thinking about this this morning as I threw the rest of a delicious pecan pie into the trash can. It nearly killed me. One of my peculiarities is that I hate to waste food. This was woven into the very fabric of my soul by my mother, who was born in the throes of the Great Depression, the daughter of a Depression Mama. My grandmother, Ma, used to beg to take tomato sandwiches with us in a cooler when she went with our family on vacay. Such are my roots.
This otherwise altruistic and "good" tendency runs headlong into my sugar addiction, a snare Satan uses to undermine my otherwise (thank you, Jesus!) excellent health. To some, pecan pie (basically, sugar) is not sin. To me, it can be ... and usually becomes a trap. Of course, the pecan pie was merely the "trap of the week"...
It's hard to find the glory in temptations, but I submit to you that glory is there. Look at today's passage with me, Romans 12:3-8 (NET)
3For by the grace given to me I say to every one of you not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think, but to think with sober discernment, as God has distributed to each of you a measure of faith. 4For just as in one body we have many members, and not all the members serve the same function, 5so we who are many are one body in Christ, and individually we are members who belong to one another. 6And we have different gifts according to the grace given to us. If the gift is prophecy, that individual must use it in proportion to his faith. 7If it is service, he must serve; if it is teaching, he must teach; 8if it is exhortation, he must exhort; if it is contributing, he must do so with sincerity; if it is leadership, he must do so with diligence; if it is showing mercy, he must do so with cheerfulness.
In those individual, unique traps Satan sets for us lie opportunities to glorify God by resisting temptation. Another piece of beauty is that these temptations keep us humble. Let me share with you my own "humble pie" this morning, a glimpse into my own warfare story. I believe we tend to idolize people or to think more highly of them than we ought to think. I also believe we tend to idolize ourselves, thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought.
As a child, I accepted Christ and then re-affirmed my commitment to Him as a teen. From there, I did my best to follow Him. However, I was proud, very, very proud. I tended to look on others with a certain amount of disdain, as opposed to compassion. As I tried to do everything "by the Book", this condition became worse and worse. And, the very worst part? I had no idea it was happening. I was totally blind to my own sin.
The Lord used a series of devastating experiences to open my eyes to my idolatry, my self-exaltation, my pride. This sin continues to plague me, although due to my history with Him, thankfully I am somewhat more aware of it now. My sinful pride was and is the flip-side of my spiritual gifts. That's the way it usually is, which is why Paul began to talk about gifts of the Spirit in the same breath as he spoke about humility. (Sort of like my sugar addiction/saving food conundrum)
Examples: if you have the gift of mercy, beware that you don't become an "enabler". If you have the gift of teaching, make sure you don't neglect the exercise of that knowledge, the service which should flow from increased illumination/revelation. You get my drift. If we carefully look at our own "gift bag", we can probably find our corresponding weak spots. This is what Paul means by "sober discernment".
These should produce in our lives humility, the meekness that can only come from Above. The other night, Easter Sunday, I watched again The Passion of the Christ. In the context of how He allowed men to do what they did to Him, I marveled that He "opened not His mouth" (Isaiah 53:7). He did respond to questions from the Sanhedrin and from Pilate, the most honest/earnest seeker of them all on that dastardly day. But, to Herod, that pompous buffoon, He said nothing. The King of the Universe! The Creator of all that was made! He humbly said nothing.
I'm still learning about humility, as those closest to me know. Humility is the soothing salve that heals the burns inflicted by the fire in my soul. As painful, horribly painful, as the "burns" I've received over the years have been, I am so, so thankful for them! They served to shine a laser beam on my dreadfully prideful heart. They increased my "sober discernment" about myself and changed the way I view others. As Paul reminds us all, "we belong to each other."
Do we really want to be more like Jesus Christ? It is a fearful thing to open our hearts a crack, to let the Holy Spirit flay your heart open and expose things He wants to root out of there...to allow God's balm of humility to seep in. Oh, but I exhort you, Christians, to do it, even as I daily exhort myself.
As we close in prayer today, pray along with me a prayer of St. Augustine of Hippo:
"Lord Jesus, let me know myself and know you,
And desire nothing, save only you.
Let me hate myself and love you.
Let me do everything for the sake of you.
Let me humble myself and exalt you."
Amen.
Source:
http://saintaugustineacademy.com/saint-augustine-of-hippo-facts-prayers/
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