Month: November 2020

Categories
Humility Pride Society

Is Pride Bad?

Is pride good or bad?

No offense, if you are a bumper sticker aficionado. Truly, most of the stickers I see are harmless and some are amusing or fun. Sure there are others that are plenty offensive, but whatever, it is just a silly sticker. Best not to let it get the best of you.

Still, often enough I see a bumper sticker that strikes me as just plain stupid. The latest one said: “Pain is temporary. Pride is forever.” Sure the underlying premise of this is no pain, no gain, which is all well and good. But I think it is poor word choice throwing the word pride in there. How has pride turned into something to be valued?

Since When Is Pride A Good Thing?

I think Jesus made it pretty clear that humility is good and pride is bad. Now of course there are different types of pride, and it can maybe overlap some with other constructs like confidence or strength, but at its core, pride is sin.

Maybe the easiest trap to fall into is pride in country, or where you are from. I get it. Your environment affects who you are and molds you into the person you are. Maybe that partially explains why so many people are proud of their country. I think at its core, pride in country is really pride in oneself.

Think about it. Nobody has any control of where they are born or where they spend the most formative parts of their lives (ages 15-20 years). All of that is a direct result of who your parents. It just seems silly to me.

I am not immune it by any means. There is so much I love about the U.S., and I am quick to defend what I feel are one-sided critiques of it. But I won’t say it is the best country on earth or anything like that. That is personal opinion.

If you take a step back, every country and society is both great and flawed in similar ways. After all each country is defined by its people and all people are creatures capable of great good and great evil.

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/is_pride_really_a_sin

https://saddlebackleather.com/signs-of-pride

Pride and Humility
The Fruits of Pride

https://www.crossway.org/articles/10-key-bible-verses-on-pride/

Categories
Rooted Small Group Witnessing

Rooted Workbook

My church consistently has small groups which is great. Community is a huge part of developing our relationship with God and others and small groups facilitate that. I think the most important thing of any small group is that each person challenges each other.

It is not easy to living life as a Christian and we need the support of others’, but at the same time, it is important to challenge each other to be better and to call each other out when they say or do something that may not necessarily be from God.

As Christians we should look to serve God and seek his approval, not anybody else’s. This is something I struggle with, and I think lots of people do around the world. It is so easy to seek approval from those around us even when it goes against was God wants for us.

Anyway, the focus of this latest small group (thanks Zoom for making it possible during a pandemic) was around a workbook called Rooted. Honestly, my wife and I didn’t agree on everything they said, but overall it was one of the better small group books we’ve done.

The last one we did was on Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, and that one started out great. It really covers important topics, but after a month or two of going through it weekly, it was draining, and for me personally, it wasn’t good.

Rooted is actually what spurred me to start this blog, so I had to shout it out. During the week about sharing our testimony, one of the questions asked where in my life might God might be leading me to share my testimony. Pretty quickly the idea of starting a Christian blog popped into my head. I took action on it immediately and Daring Evangelist was born. Why daring? The last sermon I’d heard was about Daniel and the kids song “Dare to be a Daniel“

Categories
Worship

What is Worship?

Active intimacy with God.

Categories
Evangelism Testimony Witnessing

Coming up with, and sharing, your testimony: What is your story?

Categories
Christianity Politics

What is Christianity and Why Does it Have Such a Bad Rap?

Well, here is another Christian blog. I doubt I’ll be treading any water that hasn’t been tread before, but if I can transform just one person’s heart or mind to be even just a bit more receptive, and open, to Christianity, then that would be great.

It feels a little weird typing it: Christianity. One word that conjures a wide range of emotions depending on who you are. For me, when I hear the word Christianity I can’t help but think of how bad “Christians” are when it comes to public relations.

A sermon that stuck with me from years ago by my friend Dan Snyder, touched upon how negatively we are perceived by non-Christians. You ask them what comes to their mind when they hear that word and they aren’t words with good connotations. Words like homophobic. I can’t remember the others that Dan mentioned, but doing a quick search and you can find plenty: self-righteous, hate filled, hypocrites… I’m sure the list goes on.

It makes sense that non-Christians don’t necessarily have the best view of us, otherwise they would be one of us, but the fact that some people have just a straight up terrible taste in their mouth with Christians is something that I’ve been struggling with lately. I’m sure this isn’t just a thing in the U.S., but given our hyper-polarized political system, I can’t help but think that the “religious right” is partly to blame.

Why are some Christians so drawn to proudly affiliating themselves with a political party?

Why do some people say they are Christian but don’t act like it?

Who am I to say if someone is truly a Christian or not? I can’t see into their heart.

Something from a devotional calendar that got me thinking: “If we are heavy and gloomy it is not because we are Christians, it is because we are not Christian enough.”