In my last post I shared some thoughts on my summer in NMB and how I'd caught myself wanting to justify my success or failure. After returning home, I read a Tim Keller quote that really resonated with me as I thought through my summer:
"Unless you believe the gospel, everything you do will be driven by pride or fear." This is pretty applicable to my experience. I wanted to justify myself before people because I feared what they thought of me. I probably should be writing this is present tense: I fear what other people think of me. Then there's pride, which is defined as a deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements. Gross. I was prideful in my accomplishments this summer when things went well. And when things didn’t go well, I could talk about my inexperience, to justify myself. If we don't believe that God accepts us through Christ, and we look to some other thing for acceptance or to prove ourselves, that's idolatry. "Idolatry is looking to some created thing to give you what only God can give you" (Tim Keller, Every Good Endeavor). When we idolize something, we love it above all other things. We serve it. We draw meaning and worth from it, more than we draw our meaning or worth from God. I read somewhere that we never break one of the 10 commandments without also breaking the first commandment (that's probably from a Tim Keller book or sermon or tweet). “I am the Lord Your God; You shall have no other Gods before me.” The rest of the commandments involve breaking the first one because we’ve made something an idol, a god. Unless I believe the gospel, I'll bow to pride or fear. Unless I believe I am known and loved and accepted by God first and foremost, and live my life out of that firm foundation, I'll trust in man to provide those things. If I don't believe the gospel, I'll find myself on sinking sand.
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Amy WellnerEncouraging others to intentionally live out their God-given identity. Archives
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