When God freed me from my years of legalism, I was transformed forever. This resulted in my ruled based ways of living drifting away. Hoever, much later, I had to face the reality that I was still not free in one area in particular. It was a fleshly attitude that hurt some of those I loved the most. I had to be confronted in love, but very firmly, to understand that I had a problem. My problem was pride. When my mentor first asked me if I struggled with pride, I said, "No one has ever mentioned that to me". Wisely, he followed with, "Do you have a problem with believing you are superior"? Immediately, my eyes were opened to a side of pride I did not realize was there. Yet, I was puzzled. Where did that come from? I knew my identity in Christ! How was this possible?
Well,
I wish I could tell you that I could immediately pinpoint when this
thinking started,
but that would not come until later. I think my Father took some time to let me
see the ugly hurtfulness of this sin. I kept asking Him, where did this come
from? At first, I realized that it was left over from my years of legalism. The
root of pride produces the fruit of superiority in the legalist. They see
themselves as superior to other Christians because they "keep the
rules".
Next, the Holy Spirit took me back to my high school years, where I started to
beleive that had to be the best to feel significant.\
Finally, He caused me to understand some of the messages I often observed being
played out before me as a child. In this context, I realized that I had learned
superiority.
Yet
even before that, my real problem was that I was born into this world as a
sinner and all sinners perform for acceptance. I did it in "socially acceptable
ways". My younger brother did it in "socially
unacceptable ways". In either case, those who think they perform well believe
they are superior.
My
loving Abba began to slowly free me from my sinful pattern of superiority. It
was a really big pattern in my flesh, and it took multiple crises for me to come
to grips with it.
In Philippians 2:3, we are instructed to "Do nothing from
rivalry or conceit but in humility count others as more significant than
yourselves". When we are confident of who we are in Christ, we can actually
consider others as better than us. This does not mean we are to put ourselves
down with some twisted false humility. But it does mean we are to realize that
the flesh can lead us to sit on the "perch of superiority".
Galatians 3:28 says, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free,
there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." All of
our superiority died with our old sinful identity on the cross.
How about you? Do you have a problem with superiority? Do you have spiritual
superiority? Gender superiority? Racial superiority? Socioeconomic superiority?
Those are all sinful ways of feeling superior and come from this
world.
In God's family, the only One superior is our God! Yes, in Christ, we
are all important but no one is more important than any other regardless of how
we perform, how big our ministry is, what we possess or our what position we
have. We are all children of God with equal value.
If you realize you have a problem with the sin of superiority, I urge you
to face it. Ask God to show you where it started. Then ask Him to bring into
your experience your freedom from this because of who you are in Christ. In Christ, you are humble!
Until next time, remember He loves us!
Live Free In Christ,
Mark Maulding, President and Founder
GraceLifeInternational.com
All Content Copyright © 2012 Mark Maulding
