The End of Ourselves

One of our core faults that affects pretty much everything else we do wrong in American Christianity is that we have made the gospel self-centered, focused on ourselves. Our pursuits, programs, purposes are all related to ourselves. Think about it. Worship. Done for that feeling, for ourselves. Sermon. Listened to in order to see what I can get out of it. Serving at the homeless shelter. Done to feel good about myself and check a good deed off my list for the month. Teaching Sunday school. Done to keep my good reputation alive and well in the church. Tithing. Done to keep God off my back and make the church secretary believe I'm a good person. What happened to God's purpose? God's heart? God's intention? His glory is His pursuit, His purpose, His design, His intention, and His heart for everything! We must come to the end of ourselves. Here are some quotes from David Platt's book, Radical.

Using Joshua and the battle of Jericho as a reference: "This is how God works. He puts His people in positions where they are desperate for His power, and then He shows His provision in ways that display his greatness" (48). NOT ABOUT US!!

"It is the way of Christ. Instead of asserting ourselves, we crucify ourselves. Instead of imagining all the things we can accomplish, we ask God to do what only he can accomplish. Yes, we work, we plan, we organize, and we create, but we do it all while we fast, we pray, and while we constantly confess our need for the provision of God. Instead of dependence on ourselves, we express radical desperation for the power of his Spirit, and we trust that Jesus stands ready to give us everything we ask for so that he might make much of our Father in the world. Think about it. Would you say that your life is marked right now by desperation for the Spirit of God? Would you say that the church you are a part of is characterized by this sense of desperation? Why would we ever want to settle for Christianity according to our ability or settle for church according to our resources? The power of the one who raised Jesus from the dead is living in us, and as a result, we have no need to muster up our own might. Our great need is to fall before an almighty Father day and night and to plead for him to show his radical power in and through us, enabling us to accomplish for his glory what we could never imagine in our own strength. And when we do this, we will discover that we were created for a purpose much greater than ourselves, the kind of purpose that can only be accomplished in the power of his Spirit" (60).