Wednesday, March 27, 2019

SELF


SELF
Wednesday, March 27, 2019

  “the serpent beguiled me” Genesis chapter 3
  Isaiah [GW] 64:1-9 If only you would split open the heavens and come down! The mountains would quake at your presence. Be like the fire that kindles brushwood and makes water boil. Come down to make your name known to your enemies. The nations will tremble in your presence. When you did awe-inspiring things that we didn't expect, you came down and the mountains quaked in your presence. No one has ever heard, no one has paid attention, and no one has seen any god except you. You help those who wait for you. You greeted the one who gladly does right and remembers your ways. You showed your anger, because we've sinned. We've continued to sin for a long time. Can we still be saved? We've all become unclean, and all our righteous acts are like permanently stained rags. All of us shrivel like leaves, and our sins carry us away like the wind. No one calls on your name or tries to hold on to you. You have hidden your face from us. You have let us be ruined by our sins. But now, LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are our potter. We are the work of your hands. Don't be too angry, LORD. Don't remember our sin forever. Now look, we are all your people.

  Like Eve, we much prefer blaming Satan for our selfish acts, but as the word itself designates, the problem is self. This I well know.
  Janie B. Chaney, in her March WORLD magazine essay Us Against Ourselves presents an understandable experienced list.
·         Self against tradition.
·         Self against absolute rule. (Sovereign Jehovah God Almighty being at the top of the list.)
·         Self against society.
·         Self against family.
·         Self against the other.
·         Self against self.
  Beginning with Satan (Isa.14; Ez.28), Adam and Eve, and then with other stories and exhortations God’s Word tells us of this common self-against. Beyond the Biblical record we continue to struggle naturally. Let us instead be clay being reshaped by the Potter’s hands.
EBB4

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