Sunday, August 27, 2006

Men Look On The Outward Appearance

1 Samuel16:7 (Amplified) But the Lord said to Samuel, Look not on his appearance or at the height of his stature, for I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees; for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.

I'm in the midst of reading a book titled Today's Embrace by Linda Lee Chaikin. It's the third book in her series, East Of The Sun. The setting is in England and South Africa in the early 1900's, during the time of the diamond & gold mines and English interests in Rhodesia. There's lots of history here, which always appeals to me. Of course, this is fiction and deals with people's lives as history unfolds. In the story there is a missionary, Dr. Jakob van Buren, who is committed to bringing the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the African tribesmen who are enslaved to the spirits of darkness. I was impressed by the following portion, as Jakob preaches to the Englishmen.

A thought flashed through her mind. She remembered what Dr. Jakob van Buren had said when she'd attended his Sunday service once. Dr. Jakob had been invited to speak at Government House, and his message had not gone over well with those present. Uncle Julien had looked as though he wanted to toss him in the river while the crocodiles were feeding. And Peter had sat straight in his chair with an expression as leaden as the statues in the British Museum.

"Most people," his voice had boomed, with a ragged Boer accent, "prefer their sin clothed with the latest style of sophistication. Pride puts on a pretty face and sits in the theater enjoying a symphony, and we say, 'Oh, these are the good people of the civilized West.' Oh, the raw sin of the naked savage with his doctrines of demons offends our finer natures--as well it should--and so we missionaries come with torches of light, which is God's Word. A Word that reveals His Son Jesus Christ. For we are darkness in and of ourselves. We have no light apart from Him."

"Witchcraft unearths the rotting corpse called sin, and we sophisticates are offended! It is well we should be. But are we equally offended with our own sin? We are all sinners before a holy God, whether that sin is raw, and dark, and openly evil--or hidden behind silks and perfumes, lordly titles, and ambitious national goals for Her Majesty. And the sin of hypocrisy was firmly denounced when our Lord was on earth, but He had words of mercy for the woman taken in adultery!"

"Ah yes. It took the willing death of Jesus on the cross to pay for our sin. Christ is the door to God, and that door is open wide for all to enter. If you come through that door, you will find that the Father of all creation has made you a new creature in Christ. That new spiritual birth is yours through faith in Jesus Christ."

Arcilla shuddered. Oh! How Uncle Julien was offended! His face had been flushed with high blood pressure.

She hadn't liked Dr. Jakob's bluntness, either. Imagine, comparing her little sins to the spooky brutality of witchcraft with bones, gizzards, and snakeskins!

Reading this reminded me of how often I fall into the trap of comparing myself to others around me and thinking that I'm actually doing okay because their sins are so much more obvious and plentiful than mine. What stinking self-righteousness! Pride in self is one of the worst sins that there is! Who am I that I should compare myself to some other person and think I am better than that person? There is only ONE that I should compare myself to and when I do, I will always fall short because He alone is the perfect, sinless Lamb of God. I need to remember to measure myself by Him and no other, lest I be like the Pharisee in the story Yeshua told...

Luke 18:9-14 (Amplified) He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves and were confident that they were righteous [that they were upright and in right standing with God] and scorned and made nothing of all the rest of men: Two men went up into the temple [enclosure] to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee took his stand ostentatiously and began to pray thus before and with himself: God, I thank You that I am not like the rest of men--extortioners (robbers), swindlers [unrighteous in heart and life], adulterers--or even like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I gain. But the tax collector, [merely] standing at a distance, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but kept striking his breast, saying, O God, be favorable (be gracious, be merciful) to me, the especially wicked sinner that I am! I tell you, this man went down to his home justified (forgiven and made upright and in right standing with God), rather than the other man; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.

You might think that the temptation is only to compare oneself with those who are outside the Church. That's what the fine, upstanding Englishmen were doing, according to Dr. Jakob in the book I'm reading. And we all tend to do the same: "Yep, I would never kill someone like that wicked person did"; "You wouldn't see me frequenting those strip joints!"; "That guy who molested those little girls deserves to be drawn & quartered! what kind of pervert would do that, anyway? you'd never find me doing anything like that!"; "Those women down on the Strip deserve everything they get. If they're going to sell themselves, they should expect to get beat up or end up with AIDS. You'd never see me doing something like that!" I could go on, but you get the idea. Maybe we wouldn't ever be guilty of these particular sins, but I guarantee you that each of us is loaded down with a burden of our own sin that is just as nasty and ugly to God as any of these are. Just because we can hide our sins under the cloak of being a good Christian doesn't mean that God doesn't see them and weep over them.

We all make comparisons all the time, even with our fellow believers: "I can't believe that John has beer in his frig! You'd never find that in my frig!"; "The Jones' haven't been in church for 3 Sundays in a row. You don't see me missing church like that!"; "I just saw Susan & Bob go into the theater to watch that Harry Potter movie; no way would you get me to go see that!"; "That Ann Smith! She thinks she's so much better than the rest of us because she dresses so modestly all the time. Well, I could tell her a thing or two about real modesty!"; and on and on the list goes. And all the while we are comparing ourselves to these other believers, we fail to see our own self-righteousness and pride, our own besetting sins, that separate us from intimate fellowship with Father God.

Father, today help me to keep my eyes focused on You, to measure myself by Yeshua my Messiah and none other. Help me to guard my heart and my thoughts, to take every thought captive to the obedience of the Messiah, and to walk in Your Spirit, not the spirit of criticism and judgmentalism. Help me to be mindful to be a blessing, to build up and encourage the body of believers, being mindful of those who are weaker in the faith, and to not be arrogant towards anyone. Help me to show Your compassion to those who are still held captive by the darkness of sin, remembering that it's only by Your mercy that I am no longer in the same captivity. Thank You for Your steadfast love and mercies, in the name of Yeshua my Messiah, Amen!

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