Pride & Lust

The other day I got onto Facebook, and a wonderful friend of mine had this written this on her wall:

“Guys, if you're out driving and see a woman jogging, DON'T turn your head to look at her! She does see you, and she thinks you're a creeper.”

Then I looked at a comment made on it by another friend:

“Girls, if you’re out driving and see a man jogging, DO turn your head to look at him!  Make sure he sees you so that he thinks he’s AWESOME!”

It does not take much to get me thinking on a particular subject, and this comment is all it took to get me thinking again.  Why is it that the same act can promote such a different response from male and female?  I started thinking about my own response.  How have I taken it when I’m out on a run and a woman driving by takes a look at me?  Well, I have to say, I consider it a compliment.

I started thinking about my own response to this, and I started wondering how righteous this response was.  Is it in agreement with the standard of righteousness and holiness that God lays down for us in Scripture.  Some of you might be thinking, “It is just a little look!  Is it really necessary to bring in God?”  Well, YES!  God is the center of ever part of our life.  He is the God of the big things and the God of the small things.  Every thought, every emotion, every second in this world is part of the spiritual war waged between light and darkness.  Whether you think about it or not, this war is always a part of your life, “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.  We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete” (2 Corinthians 10:4-6).

If every thought is part of the war waged, and we are to take every thought captive to Christ, where does it leave the thoughts occurring when we take a look out the window at the jogger?  What about the person at the beach or just that person walking down the street that catches your eye?  I am not willing to say that it is evil to look.  However, you have to know what is happening when you are looking.  Is lust going on?  “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).  I know that I have looked at a woman before and admired her beauty and strength apart from any lustful intent, but that is not always the case for people, guys or girls.  It is not always the case for any particular person either.  At some point or another, everyone lusts.  It ultimately comes down to the responsibility of the individual to regulate and take responsibility not to look if lust is there.

Let’s go even further.  It would be naïve of us to believe that this is just a one-way interaction.  As Lauren said, “She does see you, and she thinks you're a creeper.”  The feelings of the person being looked at must be taken into account.  Even if the look of the first is entirely pure, admiration free of any lustful intent, it does not mean it is perceived in that light by the receiver.  If it is not, the looker offends against charity, for it is uncharitable to make another feel uncomfortable by your actions, and I know that I don’t want to make anyone feel that way.

If we are to err on the side of safety and charity, it is just better never to look.  That would make it simple.  However, life is not that simple.  God has made women to be beautiful to men and men to be attractive to women.  Looks are not inherently bad.  If we never looked, it is hard to believe anyone would ever be in a relationship at all, and God instituted marriage from the beginning.  The context of the look is important.  There is a big difference between being drawn to a person you meet at work or church versus hanging your tongue out the window as your drive by.  A look from a car will never amount to anything.  I have heard a lot of love stories, marriage stories, etc., and never have any of them started with, “I was out on my jog, and this person came driving by looking at me…”

So, why do some people like the looks from the people driving by if they will never come to anything?  Honestly, it may be pride.  I may have to call myself out here because I do like the looks.  I also do not think it is just guys who like the looks.  I think there are some women who like being checked out as well, whether they will admit it or not.  I think it just has to do with the person.  


Why do you run?  I don’t run because I enjoy it, though I enjoy it now much more than when I started running.  I run because I have never found anything else that will keep the fat off me like running coupled with eating right.  I run because I want to be healthy, feel good, and look good. If I am honest with myself, looking good is at the top of that list.  Enter pride.  When a woman looks at me, from the car or anywhere else, I do like it.  The only situation which changes that is if she is married, then it makes me sick to my stomach.  If she is single, though, it really does feel like a compliment, but it can also be an occasion for pride, “Make sure he sees you so that he thinks he’s AWESOME!”  Once again, I am not willing to say that any positively received look is fully enflaming the pride of the receiver.  If that was the case, every relationship would include a big side of pride.  I think, once again, it becomes the responsibility of the individual person to make sure it does not become a pride issue.

That is probably a lot to come from two little comments.  As I said, it does not take much to get me thinking on things.

Getting Told

I find political correctness to be an absolutely irritating thing.  I believe the conception of the term has take common decency in language to an absurd level.  It is necessary to avoid certain words or phrases in language in order to keep from offending, but there is a point where this becomes ridiculous.  For example, the word n*gger should never be used as it is derogatory.  However, I have been told that using the term "black" rather than "African American" is now offensive.  Leaving aside the obvious hypocrisy as this person proceeds to call me as "white," is it really upsetting to be described?  I am white.  That does not offend me, so I wonder why this person finds it offensive to be called black.  What's wrong with being black?  Pondering this subject, I came to the conclusion that race is not the issue.  The issue is that people are seeking out reasons to get offended.  They are looking for a way to put someone else in the wrong, to nitpick and find some way to feel better about themselves at the cost of the other person.  The root cause:  pride.  It is the pride that says, "I'm better than you," or even, "I'm as good as you!  Do you see?  You do that, and I don't.  That makes me better than you!"  The same thing has occurred in people who claim Christ as their savior.  I don't drink and you do, or I don't smoke and you do!  I'm better.  And then there is this one:  "I'm straight and you're living the gay lifestyle!  That makes me better!  Do you see?  I'm up here, and you're down there!  Ha!  Me equals better!"  It is really sad that the world has that view of us.  Instead of seeing people that genuinely love them, they see people that are saying, "I'm better than you!  Get out of my church!"  They should be seeing, "I love you.  Jesus loves you.  Come on in.  You are welcome here."

Do not get me wrong here.  Homosexuality is wrong.  So is having sex with anyone who is not your spouse, murdering, lying, stealing, etc.  The point is:  How are we presenting the love of Christ?  If we are going to them in love and gentleness, that is all we can do.  They may get offended anyway, that is not our fault.  We are not to judge them as those outside the church.  God will take care of that.  Our job is to love them as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us.

It is not just people outside the church who are overly sensitive, though.  Those inside the church sometimes seem to make it their business to get offended over the smallest things!  We make the jokes about people getting mad over the color of the carpet and the pews, but the reason we makes those jokes is because it has happened.  I know of at least one church that spit because of the carpet color!  Seriously?!?!  Is that the Kingdom of God here on earth?  It is pathetic that grown men and women can throw a hissy fit over something like that, but it happens all the time:

Ben talks to Marsha.  He mentions that during the last fellowship time, Sandra said, "Marsha's make-up looks fine."  Now, Ben is not the best conversationalist, and he didn't really remember that Sandra actually said, "Marsha's make-up works very well with her skin tone."  Marsha hears "fine" and construes it to mean that she looks like a dead clown with graffiti on her face.  Now she goes to Jorge and Elisa who hear her sad clown story and become angry at Sandra, too.  Soon, the story gets back to Sandra through her friends asking her why she called Marsha "a disgusting painted cow."  She is confused, but the conflict has already peeked.  From the outside, they look like fools.

This big mess and almost all of the other issues like this that arise in the churches today can be taken care of long before they get to this level or even cleaned up at this level by following how Scripture tells us to proceed:

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone.  If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.  But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.  If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.  And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a pagan or a tax collector" (Matthew 18:15-17).


Now, many of you are probably blaming poor, old Ben already, but Ben was just trying to relay a compliment.  It is not his fault that his memory fails him from time to time on the particulars, and that "fine" actually means "fine" to him.  He was pretty innocent in the matter.  The true problem began with Marsha.  When Marsha heard the word "fine," she decided within herself to take that word in a negative light.  She is one who decided "fine" meant "wrong in every way."  She was too sensitive, and she had second hand information.  Marsha could have proceeded in three ways that would have been keeping with righteousness and godliness:

1. She could have taken "fine" in a positive way.  That is a decision well within her area of control, and it would have stopped any conflict at that point.
2. She could have decided that even if Sandra meant it in a negative way, she was not going to worry about it.  This includes not holding a grudge or speaking about the issue to anyone else.  This would have prevented the conflict from going any further.
3. If the first two options just could not happen, Marsha could have begone the process of church discipline with Sandra by confronting her on the issue in a kind and gentle way and following through with the process in verses 15-17 above.  This also would have taken care of the conflict as Sandra explained what she had really said.

When we enact church discipline, either in cases of brothers or sisters wronging us or in cases when brothers or sisters are doing wrong independent of us, confronting people is never a fun thing to do.  If it becomes fun, you must check your heart because you are most likely guilty of the sin of putting someone else in the wrong which was discussed at the beginning of this.  It doesn't matter whether they are wrong or not at this point.  You need to get the plank out of your eye before you worry about their splinter.

You must confront in gentleness and reasonableness.  The confrontation is for the good of the one being confronted.  Remember this!  No one enjoys being told they are wrong unless they are humble or can look on the situation with complete objectivity, and if they are doing something wrong, it is very likely they have decided to ignore objectivity already.  Emotions can get involved very quickly, and that pushes objectivity even further away.  It is the job of the one confronting to remain calm and bring objectivity back by way of Scripture and reason.  Reason is used primarily as it is reasonable to follow Scripture rather than disregarding it.

Ultimately, it is the job of every believer, for the good of your fellow believers, the church, and the Church universal, to follow this process.  You have been bought by the blood of the Lamb.  You are no longer your own, so you no longer have the right to be offended to the detriment of the body of Christ.  You need to grow a thicker skin and quit putting yourself first.

Tools in the Hands of the Master Craftsman

It was just a normal, run-of-the-mill type of day.  There was nothing particularly interesting of fantastic going on.  It was Thursday, so we had homegroup that night.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, homegroup is similar to a Bible study, but it is more than just a Bible study.  There is fellowship, accountability, smaller group discussions, and homegroups do not have an end date like some Bible studies.  This particular homegroup was going to be different, though.  Even as the leader, I had no idea about this, but God certainly did.  This just goes to prove who the real leader is, and in every successful homegroup, Bible study, church, or otherwise, God is the leader.  Farah was one of the members of the homegroup, and she had recently fractured her spine.  She was in a back brace, and by God's grace, still had full use of her legs because her spinal chord was not severed.  Near the end of the night, she asked for use to pray for her.  The bones in her back were not regrowing.  She was not healing.  We gathered around her, laid hands on her, and began to pray.  We prayed that God would heal her.  We asked for healing in the name and Jesus, and proclaimed His power to do so.  We left that night, and I honestly do not remember if I continued to pray for Farah or not for the next week.  I would hope that I did.  During homegroup the following week, Farah let us know what God had done in her after we prayed last week.  She had an appointment with her doctor, and the doctor had taken ex-rays of her spine.  To his amazement, 2/3 of the bone mass in her back had regrown!  God had answered our prayer, and He healed Farah!  The final 1/3 regrew, and she was fully healed.  I was very happy to see her able to walk around without a back brace after that.  Praise our God who lives and allows us the privilege to be used by Him!

Sometimes, we have problems remembering our place as tools in His hands.  On Sunday we yell, "Here I am Lord!  Send me!" and on Monday we moan, "I don't want to do that!"  God has the right to use us as He sees fit to use us.  It is only by His mercy that He allows us to even ask to be used, or that He does not immediately smite us dead when we complain about being used in a way we do not want to be used, "Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?" (Romans 9:21).  I know the context of this verse shows us that Paul is speaking of those who are saved being used to show God's mercy and those who are condemned being used to show His justice, but cannot one vessel who is being saved be used to glorify God in small, menial tasks for which they are given no recognition by others while another is used for large, grand tasks that only one hidden under a rock would not be aware of?  Is either one better than the other?  No!  Each is used to glorify God, and each one, being reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, will receive their due reward from the One who's recognition does matter.  So, the janitor and the CEO both glorify God...  and remember that "many who are first will be last, and the last first" (Matthew 19:30).


If we are not careful, pride has a nasty habit of sneaking in when we are not aware of it.  It is not so easy when God, through us, heals broken or fractured bones in a week to get prideful and think we actually had something to do with it, although that has happened before.  It is much easier to fall to pride when we have a conversation with someone, God speaks through us to them on an issue they are struggling with, and then suddenly we think we're awesome counselors because we've given some great advice.  We haven't.  God used us to glorify Himself, and we go off thinking we've done something great and steal from God the glory due to Him!


"Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it,
   or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?
As if a rod should wield him who lifts it,
   or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood!" (Isaiah 10:15).

Today, when God uses you.  Give the glory to the One who deserves the glory, and allow yourself to be content in what you are:  a tool in the hand of the Master Craftsman.