Shame masquerading as humility

I am currently reading John Eldredge's "Waking the dead". (A great book, by the way). In it, John made a statement which goes something like this, "Most of the 'christian humility' we see today is nothing but shame masquerading as humility".

Somehow, we are just not ready to accept our goodness, the gift we received from God. The shame created by sin, is still impacting our self-image. I think our biggest fear is that, we think if we unleash our goodness, we may become prideful. So to combat pride, we find a way to tie ourselves at the foot of shame. We call it humility and then we act 'humble'. Talk about bondage!

Saint Iraneus's famous quote "The glory of God is man fully alive", in my opinion, is very biblical. After all, Jesus came to give us Life. "I have come that you may have Life", "I am the way, the truth and the Life". It glorifies God when we receive that life and become fully alive. It also glorifies God, when we fearlessly live that life to the full potential. That is not pride. It's living a life which reflects the glory of God. It is living just like who we truly are - "partakers of the divine nature".

It wasn't oxygen!

"And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being" - Genesis 2:7

What was it God breathed into Adam's nostrils? Have you ever wondered? Was it the 'air' we breath? Was it oxygen? Check this excerpt from 'In His Image' by Dr. Paul Brand:

When I heard that verse as a child, I imagined Adam lying on the ground, perfectly formed but not yet alive, with God leaning over him and performing a sort of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Now I picture that scene differently. I assume that Adam was already biologically alive - the other animals needed no special puff of oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide to start them breathing, why should man? The breath of God now symbolizes for me a spiritual reality. I see Adam as alive, but possessing only an animal vitality. Then God breaths into him a new spirit, and infills him with His own image. Adam becomes a living soul, not just a living body. God's image is not an arrangement of skin cells or a physical shape, but rather an inbreathed spirit.

We know the rest of the story, that Adam sinned and lost what was inbreathed into him and became dead spiritually (the wages of sin is death). The Life of God went absent from him. He was no more bearing the image of God.

Fast forward to the New Testament, the last Adam (Jesus) came to earth to give us what we lost in the first Adam. Acting out of His unconditional love and grace, He resolved the cause of death - sin, once and for all and made the entire world capable of receiving the Life through simple faith.

Do we realize that it is the very Life raised Jesus from the dead is what raises us from the state of spiritual death, when we simply receive Him by faith?

• "In him was life" - John 1:4

• "For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it." - John 5:21

• "Whoever believes in me has crossed over from death to life." - John 5:24

• "For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." - John 6:33

• "I am the bread of life." - John 6:35

• "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." - John 6:53

• "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." - John 8:12

• "I have come that they may have life" - John 10:10

• "I am the resurrection and the life." - John 11:25

• "I am the way and the truth and the life." - John 14:6

• "By believing in the Son of God, you may have life in his name." - John 20:31

By faith, we receive the very inbreathed spirit (Life) what Adam had before the fall and we now become a living spiritual being. Alive to God! And now, God want us to give flesh to that spirit, to live out the image of God here on earth. We have His very own likeness! It's mind boggling!

Man cannot fix man.

As Bob George says, man trying to fix man is like a Chevrolet trying to fix another Chevrolet.
Man has a problem - spiritual death. He is born spiritually dead in the nature of Adam. Death is the absence of life and the only person who can restore that life is Christ Jesus.
In him was life, and that life was the light of men.
Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
I am the bread of life.
I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
I have come that they may have life.
I am the resurrection and the life.
I am the way and the truth and the life.
But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Many people do not realize that their root problem is spiritual death and then we have the so called psychologists who can convince us that they can fix us using drugs and worldly philosophies. It is like putting a band-aid on the lit 'check engine' light on the dashboard of the car!