Consider Yourself (Not!)

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit (Romans 8:5, KJV).

As I came down the stairs early this morning, I found myself thinking about something that happened 35 years ago. I was working with Youth for Christ, and for our weekly staff meeting that Monday morning, I had been asked to bring the devotional.

I spoke on the subject of sin, some thoughts originally inspired by a reading from Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest. Although I cannot find that reading now, I recall that it directed me to Matthew 16, where Peter has the glorious revelation, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus calls him blessed, saying that flesh and blood—his human capacities—have not revealed this to him, but that it is a realization directly imparted by God.

However, moments later, Jesus explains to His disciples how he must suffer and die, and Peter reacts strongly: “Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall never be!” I remember that the margin notes of the King James Bible I had back then translated “Be it far from thee!” as “Pity thyself!” Oswald Chambers brought out the same meaning, and he described this response as the epitome of sin. (The 1599 Geneva Bible translates it this way, and as well, many scholars agree that these words, “pity thyself,” well express the original meaning.)

So I delivered my devotional based on these thoughts along with some of my own experiences and conclusions, and when I finished, there was silence in this serious group of Bible college graduates. The Executive Director was staring intently at me, the baby Christian; then he said, “That’s the best definition of sin I’ve ever heard.”

Even this morning, I remembered the flush of pleasure I felt back then at his praise. But more than that, the recollection caused me to consider the subject of that devotional, the continual human preoccupation with self, self-interest, self-preservation.

I put my porridge on to cook and sat down to some quiet time with God. I have been reading a book by Ellen G. White, an important figure in the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Her writings are controversial, but I allow them to inspire me, whilst continually weighing them in the light of God’s word. I would describe them as part scripture, part extrapolation, part commentary, and part historic fiction based on a solid knowledge of the Bible.

Picking up where I’d left off in her book, Desire of Ages, I found myself reading on the subject of John the Baptist and how his disciples became jealous of Jesus as His ministry began to grow. “Rabbi, He that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to Him.” Ellen White points out that Satan was taking opportunity to tempt John with protecting his own ministry. It certainly would have been an understandable, human response. But John set his will hard against the temptation: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

She goes on to say this: “If he [John] had sympathized with himself, and expressed grief or disappointment at being superseded, he would have sown the seeds of dissension, would have encouraged envy and jealousy, and would seriously have impeded the progress of the gospel.”

“If he had sympathized with himself ….” Amazing! Here was the same subject that I’d been perusing a few minutes earlier as I came down the stairs: “Pity thyself!”

Whenever we are tempted to look out for our own interests instead of cleaving to God and resting in Him, it might be time to command, “Get behind me, Satan!” After rebuking the devil, Jesus told Peter (according to various versions), “You are an offence to me, a stumbling block. You are tempting me to sin. You are not helping me; you are in my way. You are a hindrance and a snare to me. You stand right in my path, Peter, when you look at things from man’s point of view and not from God’s.”

Ouch! Moments earlier, the Master had praised him for his God-given revelation. Now He is as much as saying, “Dear Peter, you are totally in the flesh.”

Something else occurs to me here: I think that when Jesus praised him for his discernment, Peter got a little bit puffed up. He felt like he was the man of the hour, the guy with a word in season; and in the rush of pride, he became presumptuous.

We’re like that too. It’s another manifestation of our self-centredness. And so our most exalted moments can degrade quickly into some of our most humiliating.

Pride goes … before a fall (Proverbs 16:18, NKJV).