On The Corruption Of Even Noble Acts

Thoughts undertaken for God's sake...are continued as if they are an end in themselves, and then as if our pleasure in thinking were the end, and finally as if our price or celebrity were the end."  C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain.

How true this is!  Given our depravity, virtually every noble action will, in the end, be corrupted.  For example, reading my Bible daily is a good practice.  As C.S. Lewis notes, however, if I am not careful, my daily Bible reading will become an end in and of itself.  In other words, I will read my Bible for its own sake, rather than to hear from God.  I will begin to find pleasure, not in hearing from God, but in studying the Bible.  Then as my knowledge increases, it will become a source of pride.  The distinction is subtle, but important.  The activity of reading one's Bible is indeed a noble activity. Yet, it is so easy for the noble activity to become corrupted because we have such a tendency towards aggrandizement.

The activity need not be reading your Bible every day. Virtually every good deed can be corrupted by this tendency.  Perhaps it is visiting the old or sick.  Am I visiting them because I want to show love towards them? Or am I visiting them because of how it makes me feel?  Am I giving that gift because I truly want to help the child in Haiti?  Or am I giving that gift because it absolves some guilt?  Do I pray in public because I have to, or do I do it so others will hear my beautiful prayer?

Pride is the first and deadliest sin. Indeed, in some form, all sin is pride. It is wanting what I want and not what God wants. It is putting myself on the throne of my life, instead of God.

Pride is valuing self more than we should.  We are all valuable, but I am not more valuable than you and you are not more valuable than me.  Any value that we have is because of Christ and His workings in our life.

There is no easy pill to rid oneself of pride.  It requires constant vigilance because of its tendency to raise its ugly head.  It will even raise its head in so-called "noble acts."    

THE SUM OF HISTORY

All that we call human history--money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery--[is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.

Unfortunately, this quote from C.S. Lewis speaks of a profound truth, namely, that, if left to ourselves, we choose the wrong thing. Plato says it this way, 

"Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires."

Finally, the book of James says it like this:

What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?  James 4:1

Why is that?  I have such a tendency to look out only for my own interests.  I do not believe I am alone in that?  And why do I build walls around myself?  Why do I eat things that are bad for me?  Why do I have to force myself to exercise? Why do I idolize people with poor character just because they can dunk a basketball?  Why is it hard for me to forgive? Why do I not always do what I know I should do?

The good news is that we are not alone if you feel as I do; the Apostle Paul felt the same.  In Romans, Chapter 7, he writes:

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.  Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! Romans 7:18-25.

We are all wretched.  As unpopular as it is to say this, we are all slaves to something.  If Christ is not my Master, then I am a slave to sin.  The ironic thing is that the things that we naturally desire will ultimately destroy us.  "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life...." Romans 6:23.

I am not writing this to make you feel bad about yourself; we are all fallen people.  Rather, if you are reading this and you see that your choices are leading you down a destructive road, as they naturally will, then the good news is that there is Someone who has come so that you may have life, both in this world and the next.

For those of you reading this who are Christians, what choices are you making in life that show that you have not submitted completely to Christ?  What choices are you still making that are, ultimately, destructive?