Christ's Words, or Ours?
To wake up still somewhat at the behest of the body and mind which haven't yet been made fully like Christ's is to troll incessantly for likes from our fellow fallen humans. If I needed proof, that's eventually what I do when I first get out of bed. Before time in God's Word which has yielded amazing results of grace, as well as the respect of men, there is Facebook. Before Charles Spurgeon's daily devotional Morning and Evening which continues to shape me on what I think is my fourth annual trip through, there is the quest for little white numbers in a little red box indicating how approved of I am.
My flesh got a quick fix from this ritual this morning, only to be followed by pangs of withdrawal. SOMEBODY LIKES ME, came the internal howl as someone managed to wade through one of my blogs and come out on the other side with enough energy to hit the approval button on social media. What's more, the morning brought a response from my faithful reader. Perhaps she would be more specific as to from which of my gleaming insights she gleaned something that changed her life. What touched her, however, was the verse itself on which I based my musings. More than a little jealousy rose up inside me, anxious to have, in the analogy of George Elliott, a peck of my words approved of instead of a pint of the Bible's. The critic through whom Elliott spoke was right of her original pastoral target and of me. It is always that way.
Ironically, the verse and the blog in question dealt with approval and security in Christ, yet I wanted both my reader and myself to find these in my eloquence rather than His. Ironically, by grace, I have been getting large and obvious doses of very specific approval of His work in me in this season and setting. Still, the more I get, it seems the more I want, the more I will patrol the fence of my ego looking for the slightest incursion upon it. Patiently, the same Word I would expect to use to these purposes, misguided at best, continues to do its work in me. The Baptist's fiery, well-chosen words drew the nation out to the desert, yet he knew and said that he must become less and Christ must become greater. So it is with me. Heaven and Earth, Jesus said of the Creation which he declared good, will pass away, but His words, the ones with which I was in erstwhile competition, will be what remains forever.
This also is grace. One of my biggest real-life fans still remembers a complaint I made seven years before and sees in it the seeds of some subsequent difficulties. Where I would hold a little funeral for the surpassing of my words in Christ's sight and in the reckoning of men, He actually by this action intervenes between me and the judgment He promised for every idle word. Blessed is forgetfulness. Blessed is the capacity of the Holy Spirit to bring that Word above all else to our remembrance. It will inspire many a writer, musician, painter, and dramatist, but the thirst we stoke will only be slaked by the Word itself as it points to Christ the Word made flesh.
My flesh got a quick fix from this ritual this morning, only to be followed by pangs of withdrawal. SOMEBODY LIKES ME, came the internal howl as someone managed to wade through one of my blogs and come out on the other side with enough energy to hit the approval button on social media. What's more, the morning brought a response from my faithful reader. Perhaps she would be more specific as to from which of my gleaming insights she gleaned something that changed her life. What touched her, however, was the verse itself on which I based my musings. More than a little jealousy rose up inside me, anxious to have, in the analogy of George Elliott, a peck of my words approved of instead of a pint of the Bible's. The critic through whom Elliott spoke was right of her original pastoral target and of me. It is always that way.
Ironically, the verse and the blog in question dealt with approval and security in Christ, yet I wanted both my reader and myself to find these in my eloquence rather than His. Ironically, by grace, I have been getting large and obvious doses of very specific approval of His work in me in this season and setting. Still, the more I get, it seems the more I want, the more I will patrol the fence of my ego looking for the slightest incursion upon it. Patiently, the same Word I would expect to use to these purposes, misguided at best, continues to do its work in me. The Baptist's fiery, well-chosen words drew the nation out to the desert, yet he knew and said that he must become less and Christ must become greater. So it is with me. Heaven and Earth, Jesus said of the Creation which he declared good, will pass away, but His words, the ones with which I was in erstwhile competition, will be what remains forever.
This also is grace. One of my biggest real-life fans still remembers a complaint I made seven years before and sees in it the seeds of some subsequent difficulties. Where I would hold a little funeral for the surpassing of my words in Christ's sight and in the reckoning of men, He actually by this action intervenes between me and the judgment He promised for every idle word. Blessed is forgetfulness. Blessed is the capacity of the Holy Spirit to bring that Word above all else to our remembrance. It will inspire many a writer, musician, painter, and dramatist, but the thirst we stoke will only be slaked by the Word itself as it points to Christ the Word made flesh.
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