There was no mistaking Paul’s message that I read this morning in the One-Year Bible.
I am not the center of the universe.
The world doesn’t revolve around me.
I am not the alpha male of all mankind.
I am not more important than other people.
In view of the above, the last thing that I should do is to expect others to serve me because I’m better than they.
Christians should intuitively know this and not have to be reminded of such.
What should happen and what actually happens are not always the same, though.
Even in your life and mine.
Sometimes, we think #1 is the one looking at us in a mirror rather than the One looking at us from His throne in glory.
God has a way of arranging circumstances, however, that allow us to learn that we’re not as powerful or persuasive or perfect or polished or perceptive as we think we are.
He certainly has made such arrangements on several occasions in my life.
I’ve tried to learn from those seasons of error so that I didn’t repeat them. I’m not perfect yet, but at least I’m becoming less imperfect, it seems.
Here’s the passage that triggered this line of thinking:
“Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important” (Galatians 6:2-3).
Paul was not telling the Galatian believers that they lacked value. After all, Jesus died on the cross for their souls and that shows that God believed that their lives were of incredible value.
One believer’s life was not more important than another believer’s life, though. That’s what Paul was emphasizing.
The Holy Spirit-inspired message still applies.
The specific context of the passage above involves the showing of kind, restorative grace toward stumbling believers who had slipped back into worldly behaviors. Paul was telling his readers that an attitude of patience and forgiveness must be present in a church family if it is to stick together and rescue people from Satan’s slippery slopes.
But when one’s pride inflates the view of self and that puffed-up believer withholds forgiveness/acceptance until the offender bows down before him or her, then who truly is the one with the bigger problem?
Listen, friends. When somebody offends us, or even we simply think they’ve offended us, we must resist the temptation to treat them as spiritual, “low life” lepers who don’t deserve our mercy.
Satan wants us to act like this, to think that we’re more valuable and thus more important since we didn’t do that certain sin to the other person.
It’s a trap, though.
When pride seeks to make your forgiveness contingent upon your feeling more important than the person who messed up, tell Satan to take a hike and then make it clear to the offender that you’ve forgiven them and are ready to walk side by side with them in the service of the Lord.
Unity among God’s children is that important.
As always, I love you
Martin
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