Michelle Obama has taken a lot of heat because of a comment that she made. She said, “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country.” I suspect that, not being a politician, merely the wife of one, she didn’t stop to think how that would sound before she said it. Had she simply said, “I have never been more proud of my country,” I don’t think anyone would have taken issue with it.
The Bible talks a lot about pride, but generally talks about pride in a negative way: more or less the first cousin of arrogance (see Job 40:12, Psalms 10:2-4, 59:12, 73:6, 101:5, Proverbs 6:17, 8:13, 11:2, 13:10, 16:18, 29:23, Isaiah 9:9, 13:11, 25:11, 28:1-3, Jeremiah 13:9, 49:16, 50:31-32, Daniel 4:37, Hosea 7:10, Obadiah 1:3, Zephaniah 2:10, Malachi 4:1, Mark 7:22, Romans 1:30, 1 Timothy 3:6, 6:4, James 4:6, 1 John 2:16. Certainly that kind of pride is a negative thing. If I am proud of myself because I think that I have done some great thing, that’s a bad thing. If I am proud of my son because his team won the big game, that’s different. I can only find one place in Scripture where the term ‘proud’ is used that it might even be construed as being a good thing: In Psalms 31:23, it says, “O love the LORD, all ye His saints, for the LORD preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer,” and, to be honest, that could go either way. Is this a continuation of the same thought, as in the faithful are proud to do God’s will (not taking pride in themselves, of course, but taking pride in God) or is this compare and contrast, as in comparing the preserving of the faithful with the ‘reward’ of the proud? We know that rewards are not always good things (see Luke 23:41).
There are places in Scripture where it describes pride as a good thing without using that word. In Acts 5:41, it says that the disciples rejoiced that were counted worthy to suffer for Jesus’ name. That’s a little different than how we normally think of pride, but I submit that it is a form of pride, just the same. Part of the difference here is that they did not take pride in what they did, they took pride in what happened to them as a result of their faithful work. At the baptism of Christ, the Father spoke from Heaven, saying that He was pleased with Christ (See Matthew 3:17, Mark 1:11, Luke 3:22). It seems to me that it was an expression of Fatherly pride. Also, at the Transfiguration in Matthew 17, there was a similar outpouring of Fatherly pride.
Now Jesus was our perfect example, and God would like to be proud of us in much the same way, as a father is pleased with well-behaved children. In Hebrews 13:16 it says, “But to do good and communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” This gives us a hint as to how to make God proud of us. To do good may sound a little vague, but searching through the Scriptures, we can get an understanding of the good that God would have us to do. Communication isn’t difficult, but with whom? With our spiritual leaders, with our brothers and sisters in Christ, but also to those that we would see won to Christ. I don’t mean to suggest that every time you speak to someone that you know if not a person of faith that you should give them a Bible study on salvation, generally that’s just casting pearls before swine, but you should seek to tend to their needs, and try to look out for their best interests (including salvation). If you are at work, unless you work for a church or other religious institution, you aren’t getting paid to evangelize. That doesn’t mean you can’t evangelize, but how much are people going to listen to somebody who preaches all day, and doesn’t get his work done? Or maybe he gets it done, but in a sort of haphazard way. If your coworkers are constantly picking up your slack because you have something more important to do, they are only going to resent your presence, and they aren’t going to listen to anything you have to say. It isn’t that you don’t have something more important to do, you do, but, if you aren’t getting your job done, you aren’t evangelizing, either.
The Bible talks a lot about pride, but generally talks about pride in a negative way: more or less the first cousin of arrogance (see Job 40:12, Psalms 10:2-4, 59:12, 73:6, 101:5, Proverbs 6:17, 8:13, 11:2, 13:10, 16:18, 29:23, Isaiah 9:9, 13:11, 25:11, 28:1-3, Jeremiah 13:9, 49:16, 50:31-32, Daniel 4:37, Hosea 7:10, Obadiah 1:3, Zephaniah 2:10, Malachi 4:1, Mark 7:22, Romans 1:30, 1 Timothy 3:6, 6:4, James 4:6, 1 John 2:16. Certainly that kind of pride is a negative thing. If I am proud of myself because I think that I have done some great thing, that’s a bad thing. If I am proud of my son because his team won the big game, that’s different. I can only find one place in Scripture where the term ‘proud’ is used that it might even be construed as being a good thing: In Psalms 31:23, it says, “O love the LORD, all ye His saints, for the LORD preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer,” and, to be honest, that could go either way. Is this a continuation of the same thought, as in the faithful are proud to do God’s will (not taking pride in themselves, of course, but taking pride in God) or is this compare and contrast, as in comparing the preserving of the faithful with the ‘reward’ of the proud? We know that rewards are not always good things (see Luke 23:41).
There are places in Scripture where it describes pride as a good thing without using that word. In Acts 5:41, it says that the disciples rejoiced that were counted worthy to suffer for Jesus’ name. That’s a little different than how we normally think of pride, but I submit that it is a form of pride, just the same. Part of the difference here is that they did not take pride in what they did, they took pride in what happened to them as a result of their faithful work. At the baptism of Christ, the Father spoke from Heaven, saying that He was pleased with Christ (See Matthew 3:17, Mark 1:11, Luke 3:22). It seems to me that it was an expression of Fatherly pride. Also, at the Transfiguration in Matthew 17, there was a similar outpouring of Fatherly pride.
Now Jesus was our perfect example, and God would like to be proud of us in much the same way, as a father is pleased with well-behaved children. In Hebrews 13:16 it says, “But to do good and communicate forget not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.” This gives us a hint as to how to make God proud of us. To do good may sound a little vague, but searching through the Scriptures, we can get an understanding of the good that God would have us to do. Communication isn’t difficult, but with whom? With our spiritual leaders, with our brothers and sisters in Christ, but also to those that we would see won to Christ. I don’t mean to suggest that every time you speak to someone that you know if not a person of faith that you should give them a Bible study on salvation, generally that’s just casting pearls before swine, but you should seek to tend to their needs, and try to look out for their best interests (including salvation). If you are at work, unless you work for a church or other religious institution, you aren’t getting paid to evangelize. That doesn’t mean you can’t evangelize, but how much are people going to listen to somebody who preaches all day, and doesn’t get his work done? Or maybe he gets it done, but in a sort of haphazard way. If your coworkers are constantly picking up your slack because you have something more important to do, they are only going to resent your presence, and they aren’t going to listen to anything you have to say. It isn’t that you don’t have something more important to do, you do, but, if you aren’t getting your job done, you aren’t evangelizing, either.
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1 comment:
So no more slacking off I'm assuming? :)
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