Look to Jesus for your Joy (John Piper) They do all their deeds to be seen by others...and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces...(Matthew 23:5-7) The itch of self-regard craves the scratch of self-approval. If we are getting our pleasure from feeling self-sufficient, we will not be satisfied without others seeing and applauding our self-sufficiency... This is ironic. self-sufficiency should free the proud person from the need to be made much of by others. Thats what sufficient means. But evidently there is a void in this so-called self-sufficiency. The self was never designed to satisfy itself or rely upon itself. It never can be sufficient. We are but an image of God, not God Himself. We are shadows and echoes. So there will always be an emptiness in the soul that struggles to be satisfied with the resources of self. This empty craving for the praise of others signals the failure of pride and the absence of faith in Gods ongoing grace. Jesus saw the terrible effect of this itch for human glory. He named it in John 5:44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? The answer is, you cant. Itching for glory from other people makes faith impossible. Faith is being satisfied with all that God is for you in Jesus. And if you are bent on getting the satisfaction of your itch from the scratch of others acclaim, you will turn away from Jesus. But if you would turn from self as the source of satisfaction (repentance) and come to Jesus for the enjoyment of all that God is for us in Him (faith), then the itch would be replaced by a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:14)
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 05:53:56 +0000
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