The gentlest form of spiritual narcissism is the idea that one can accomplish one’s own spiritual growth… The belief that ‘I can do it’ is intimately associated with the assumption that ‘it is my idea, my desire, to do it.’ spiritual narcissism works to deny the realization that our spirituality comes from God.
~Gerald May
Thus says the Lord:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the Lord.
He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.
~ Jeremiah 17:5-6
Beloved, there is one pervasive piece of good news that winds its way all the way through the Word of G_d.
Stop trying… You are hopeless… It is impossible for you to get to heaven… Your good works will NEVER balance out against the perfection of His holy righteousness.
What?
Yeah, and this is VERY good news.
Oh yeah, we give lip service to the truth that we need G_d’s help. But the passage above makes it abundantly clear that just giving this lip-service is an exceedingly bad idea. For us to trust in the religions of man, or in our own strength is to curse our selves to a life that is devoid of goodness. But…
“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
~ Jeremiah 17:7-8
And notice here that the trusting is more of a peaceful, resting yielding. When we allow G_d, He plants us in a place where growth and strength and good abound. However, this yielding is the final epic battle of our life. Because…
The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
“I the Lord search the heart
and test the mind,
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”
~ Jeremiah 17:9-10
But, it is here that the good news of the Gospel gets ever better…
Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed;
save me, and I shall be saved,
for You are my praise.
~ Jeremiah 17:14
We can’t do it. But He can. And when He does it. It stays done.
Keep reading in the passage (well all of them) and see that even the laws about the sabbath and things like it, were about ceasing from work and resting in G_d’s power.
Thus says the Lord:
Take care for the sake of your lives,
and do not bear a burden on the Sabbath day or bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. And do not carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath or do any work, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers.
~ Jeremiah 17:21-22
The rest mandated by the Sabbath is but a shadow of the real rest we can enter into through the work Christ did on our behalf. Would that we might cease tonight from our struggle, and cease from our trust in our own strength.
Heal our hearts Lord. Heal them that they may be healed and stay healed!
Any battle for victory, power, and deliverance – from ourselves and from sin – which is not based constantly upon the gazing and the beholding of the Lord Jesus, with the heart and life lifted up to Him, is doomed to failure.
~Alan Redpath
