Friday, April 20, 2007

Are you a spiritual narcissist or just a plain nut?

haha! what a funny thing to say!
my inspiration is solely from dr. larry crabb & j.i. packer :)

what they mean is that a vast amount of people in the modern church concern themselves more with becoming godly than with God Himself!! can you even imagine? it sounds ridiculous, but we all do it at times, don't we? i start freaking out if i go too many days without a quiet time, but if i examine it closely my freaking out stems out of the knowledge that without quiet times, I am headed down the road to despair. not so much concerned with the fact that i'm not encountering GOD. j. i. packer says, "while my fellow believers are constantly seeking to advance themselves in godliness, they show little direct interest in god himself...there is someting narcissistic and, to tell the truth, nutty in being more concerned about godliness than about god". larry crabb goes on to explain that we have turned god into "the helpful god of useful principles" & we have turned ourselves into "understandable strugglers who deserve to be understood and helped".

in actuality, God is a holy god of passionate wrath & we are arrogant people who deserve eternal misery. but we dont like that, do we? no, we like for people to overlook our sin because of the suffering we have to face. we want to be sympathized with for our negative upbringings & we want a hug, not a scolding. we can't live like this! the truth is, we do get a hug when we turn to jesus, but expecting a hug is what dietrich bonhoeffer calls CHEAP GRACE.

i think i might be a spiritual narcissist. there is a verse in colossians (1:18) that says, "He is also head of the body, the church..." & I was thinking about it & it hit me that Jesus Christ is an active member of my church! i know it sounds so dumb, but i had made church a place for ME to grow, for ME to worship, for ME to fellowship. Narcissistic!!!!! holy cow, i'm tired.

if you are interested in these ideas, go read shattered dreams by larry crabb or borrow it from me. i didn't agree with everything he said, but it definitely made me think :)

2 comments:

michelle said...

I think those are great things to ponder. Sometimes we all need a big dose of people like Piper with his God-focused way of addressing things. I'm afraid we do a lot for just our own sakes. 0000000000

Anonymous said...

You write very well.