Monday Meditation

Our pastor continued his "Battling Unbelief" sermon series yesterday, talking for a second week about bitterness. When attitudes such as anger, bitterness, anxiety, pride, shame, or impatience cripple a believer, a key to healing lies in taking a biblical pill. The often hard-to-swallow medicine allows Scripture to illuminate an area where we battle unbelief. Every belief we hold dear jumps off the inert page of ideas or facts in our head and lives in the appetites of our hearts. Either we fasten these appetites to Christ in a quest for satisfaction or  turn from Christ to seek satisfaction in someone or something else.
For example, when pride subdues us, we exemplify a deep form of unbelief. We really turn from God and seek satisfaction in self. Maslow's pyramid calls us to self-determination and a self-exaltation that dates back to Eden.  James 4:6-8 teaches that the opposite of pride involves submitting to God. The fight for humility does not mean beating up on self in a series of self-deprecating verbal or physical blows. We engage in a battle with the wisdom of the full scope of Scripture. Romans 12:3 gives us a balanced weapon for the battle. " For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: 'Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you'." Sober judgment involves the measure of faith God has given.
Anxiety often rides in tandem to pride. Pride does not want to admit anxiety: stress perhaps, but not anxiety. But I Peter 5:7 teaches me this: "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." We can now begin to cherish the privilege of fellowship with God, the One who asks us to cast stress, cares, anxities, all on Him. Beginning to avail myself of the When we have a relationship with Christ, by grace, we can admit the need for help. Pride will not, cannot do this. In this battle with unbelief, we begin to see that real faith loves for God to be God. Jeremiah 13:15-16 reminds us: "Hear and pay attention, do not be arrogant, for the LORD has spoken. Give glory to the LORD your God before he brings the darkness, before your feet stumble on the darkening hills."
We can take heart whether the current struggle involves our pride, anxiety, covetousness or any other fallout from our broken world. Seeing the battle as one of unbelief sends us back to the captain of our souls, the one who can arm us because He is the prefecter of our faith.