To Encourage You

Psalm 106:6-8 “Both we and our fathers have sinned; we have committed iniquity; we have done wickedness. Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make known his mighty power.”

Have you noticed the plethora of self-help gurus that are out there?  So many of their teachings are rooted in the idea that we are more wonderful than we realize we are.  They tell us that we have great power inside of us that just needs to be unleashed. Some even tell us that we are actually godlike; we just haven’t realized it yet.  Much of this type of thinking has even crept into the church.  These teachings have always troubled me, and as I read the passage above from Psalm 106 this morning, I more fully understood why.  

You see, the Scriptures are filled with teaching about examining ourselves.  In James 1:23-24 we are told that the Bible acts as a mirror that exposes what is on the inside, under our skin.  In Jeremiah 17:9 we see one such internal image exposed, as we are told that “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” It’s not a pretty picture.  In Romans 3:10-18 we get a similar reflection from this mirror. There it says, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips.  Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”  It’s an ugly picture that we aren’t naturally inclined to listen to or believe.  We tend to think we are pretty good people, and if not, the self-help gurus are working hard to convince us of it.  

The Bible would have us know that one of our biggest problems is our self-centeredness.  It’s this attitude that is behind our selfishness, self-love, self-righteousness, and other symptoms of a self-focused life.  Jesus told us that if we would love God and love our neighbor the entire Law of God would be obeyed, for at its root, all sin is rooted in the opposite as we live a life that’s all about US.  And so it occurs to me that the problem with the self-help message is that it’s rooted in a self-centered “goodness,” but it’s a goodness that is just as self-centered as all the other self-centered attitudes and actions that most people tend to see in a more negative light.  

So, what does a life that is transformed by Christ look like in contrast to a life transformed by some self-help five, ten, or twenty-step formula?  It’s that the focus gets turned off of ourselves and onto the only One Who is truly worthy of praise, the Lord Jesus Christ.  That’s the message of the passage above.  It tells us that Israel was saved time after time by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and not because of their own goodness.  Rather, they were saved DESPITE their wickedness. It was all done for the sake of the name of their Savior, to make known His mighty power, rather than their own.  Ephesians 2:8-9 gives us the same message about personal transformation when it says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And THIS IS NOT YOUR OWN DOING; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, SO THAT NO ONE MAY BOAST.” It’s the same message everywhere we look in the Scriptures, such as in Philippians 1 where Paul writes, “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.  And I am sure of this, THAT HE WHO BEGAN A GOOD WORK IN YOU WILL BRING IT TO COMPLETION AT THE DAY OF JESUS CHRIST. . . And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled WITH THE FRUIT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS THAT COMES THROUGH JESUS CHRIST, TO THE GLORY AND PRAISE OF GOD.” 

Do you hear that?  It’s all about the good work that God had both begun in us and would bring to completion. It didn’t all start within us. It started solely because of the work of the God Who is holy.  Before our salvation we were separated from Him because of our sin. But it was His work, His provision of a remedy for our sin, His cleansing, and His work of sanctification of our hearts.  And it’s all about a wonderful righteousness, but a righteousness that in no way came from within us. Rather, it came to us through Jesus Christ, and it was never meant for the praise of US, but to the glory and praise of God.  

You see, these self-help gurus, including the self-help gurus all across the land masquerading as ministers of Christ, all have a message for itching ears.  Crowds flock to them and even pay them exorbitant amounts of money to hear about the goodness that is within them and is just waiting to come out.  It’s a message that puts people on the broad road to feelings and promises of self-centered goodness, but in the end leads only to eternal death.  May God keep us from such deception and guide us always on the narrow road that leads to life (Matthew 7:13-14).  It’s the narrow road of the gospel which is the message of our own sinfulness with only one remedy, i.e., the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross to pay the debt for that sin.   It is the message that it is only through faith in Him that we can find forgiveness and be clothed for all eternity with the very righteousness of Christ.  And all of it, every aspect, is for the glory, not of ourselves, but of the One Who made it all possible, i.e., God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, for it is only in this God that all true goodness resides (Mark 10:18).