Life is Simple, Part I: Not You!

Last April I moved to Portland, Oregon from my home in Colorado Springs, Colorado to play drums for a band called Above the Golden State. Never before have I been stripped of so much in my entire life. A dear friend of mine and I drove roughly eighteen hours to reach my new home. The first couple weeks were fun. It was finally a new city for me. After a couple of weeks passed I started to break down. For me, Reader, comfort is a vice and Portland was anything but comfortable. I remember becoming overwhelmed with discomfort and the pain of missing the very things I intentionally left only weeks prior. It was then that I realized what God was doing. He was breaking me. I was completely exposed before Him. It was just me and God. The first month into my move was slow for the band and was more or less set aside for me to get settled in. It was a month (or more) of solitude… bold, sharp and painful solitude. I had time to myself, time to think. Now that I had time and space to look inward, God began to reveal those areas of flesh that were eating away at my relationship with Him. He showed me every struggle that I was pushing under the rug back home because I was busy, and frankly, it was easy. He would find a spot that hurt, push into it until the pain was so unbearable that I had to die. See, Dear Reader, that was His intention all along. He longed for my defeat! He wanted me to die to my self and live in Him. Had I not moved, He knew that it would be much harder for me to understand.

Pride is the root of all sin. No matter how we look at it, every sin when it's broken down to its smallest form is pride. I can't tell you how much this has simplified my life lately, Dear Reader. Look at this way, if we know the root of all sin and death, then we can know the opposite… the root of all praise to God, the root of true life: self-denial. When we die to our selves and allow Christ to be resurrected in us, we defy the Flesh, the World, and Satan. There is no match. Our war has been won. As I said, this concept has changed the way I live. Last Spring I read A.W. Tozer's God's Pursuit of Man. Tozer embellished on this idea much better than I ever could and it changed my world. He says, "The degree of blessing enjoyed by any man, will correspond exactly with the completeness of God's victory over him." He goes on to explain the story of Jacob, the guy who wrestled with the mysterious God-man (Gen. 32:22-29). If you haven't read that passage, you should, because it's remarkable! Tozer said, "It was only after going down to humiliating defeat that [Jacob] began to feel the joy of release from his own evil strength, the delight of God's conquest over him." I want to experience God's full blessing. I think we all do. First, we must allow God to be victorious over us.

See, when I realized the fact that God, in a very loving way, wants to defeat us, I finally understood the idea of redemption. In a weird, sort of backwards way, He wants us to be crucified. We must wrestle with Him (Gen. 32:22-29). We must pass through His fire (Isa. 30:27, Duet. 4:24). We must spend three days in the belly of a fish (Jonah 1:17). We must endure His judgment, His discipline (Heb. 12:11). We must be led into the desert by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 4:1, Luke 4:1-2). Only then will we catch a glimpse of His love for us. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO OVERESTIMATE THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST. His love is always greater than we think. We cannot grasp His mighty love for us. There is no escape. The more we hold onto our flesh, the less we see God's love. What is that called when we hold onto our flesh? Selfishness. What's another word for selfishness? Pride. Every piece of darkness exists because of the shadow cast by our pride.

When I truly understood God's intention behind His "conquest" over me, I was able to set my self down (all the way down… to Sheol) and allow God to live in me. What else could we ask for as Christians? That's the whole point! It is not about our comfort. It is not about our success… in fact, it's not about us at all. God's story, His plotline, is about the absence of pride. It's about NOT us… the lack of human nature and the substance of God's perfect nature. So, as I was tossing this idea around in my head about a year ago, I got to the point where I said to myself, That's it? I have to simply put the concern for my wellbeing aside and love God and love others? That's it? It truly is that simple! This idea radically changed every decision I had to make. It changed the way I handle my money (or lack thereof!), it changed the way I see people, the way I handle confrontation, the way I worshiped, the way I planned for my future, the way I see my future wife, the way I view sexuality, and most importantly it changed the way I see myself. Everything changed. I realize now that I am simply a vessel for Christ. I am a glove. The thing that makes gloves work, though, is that they are empty…! I need to be empty in order to be filled. God, fill me! As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, that is our role as humans… to submit to the will of God. That should be our goal in life… that's our life's purpose. Let there be more of Him and less of me. Period.

Pride leads to all sins and one of pride's side affects is fear. I'll explain more about the problems and characteristics of fear in part two…