Confessing not studying self denial: Clip from Consider Revival V

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Not studying self -denial, nor resolving to take up the cross of Christ.

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For me, this one really encompasses all kinds of additional ones. For instance, there's one, exceeding great selfishness in all that we do, acting from ourselves, for ourselves, to ourselves.

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We find ourselves, as we're taping this in kind of the Christmas season, and I don't know about you, but when

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I'm shopping online for gifts for my family, I'm often diverted to look at things.

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Well, you know, I might need to look at this particular object, too. I've never done that, Steve. Never bought a thing for myself.

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But you know, the whole idea that we are called as believers to take up that cross to a self -denial kind of life as our

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Savior lived, and yet, again, we live in a world and in America with all our abundance where it's so easy to just sort of get complacent and focused on where we are, and sort of live on that pillowed life, rather than really seeking to serve others and deny ourselves.

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Seems to me that, as I say, is kind of an umbrella sort of attitudinal thing, ultimately, that probably impacts many of these other specific confessions.

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But another one later on in that list that is very similar for me, finding of our own pleasure when the

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Lord calls for our humiliation. And again, those old writers, that idea of humiliation, but I see that as basically being another kind of a synonym for the self -denial, that we need to put others first.

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And that is ultimately the heaven -mindedness, and ultimately,

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I think there's a footnote that Banar refers to, where it's spiritual -mindedness that is ultimately at the core of our

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Christian life and what we often kind of fail to live up to. Another one that I noted was, they said, the sin of coming to our

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Bibles and studying them, not for our own soul first, but using it,

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I would say in modern language, as source material for our task. So Sunday school teacher,

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Sunday morning, you know, it's Saturday evening, you think, I've got to get ready for Sunday school, and so you're kind of driven by a responsibility to the

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Scripture. It is easy when we handle the Word of God somewhat professionally, okay?

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Even if you're not a minister. Like, think of a parent, if you're doing, you know, family worship, like, well,

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I've got to have something to say. You know, it's a little embarrassing to say to your kids, I've got nothing to say, guys. Nothing at all.

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Like, I don't even know where I would read from today. You cannot imagine a minister very often coming to a group of people on Sunday morning saying, well, you gave me a salary so I could devote myself to the study of Scripture and to prayer and things like that, and well,

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I just don't have anything worth saying, you know? I mean, you might once or twice get away with that, but no matter how kind your congregation, you'd probably be given another job, you know?

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You can go work somewhere else. You're obviously not cut out for this. Charles Spurgeon, in the 1800s, said it was a terrible thing, a terrible picture of our soul when the sermon drives us to the

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Bible. The pulpit drives me to the Bible. Rather than the pulpit, rather than the Bible, sorry, driving me to my pulpit.

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So let's apply that to just normal life. When my own long soak in the

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Word drives me to talk to people at work and to people at church and to the kids in my

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Sunday school class, to the children in my family about Christ, that's the healthy pattern.

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But when I know someone's expecting me to have something to say about Jesus, and so I hurry up and brush off my

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Bible, then that's a problem. And these men saw that as a sinful approach to the

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Word of God. And may I say too that that whole idea of just sort of being in the

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Word and not just leaving it after your morning devotional, but carrying it with you, and again, kind of it being the focus of your day is the ultimate challenge here, isn't it?

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I want to take one also from Bonarza. He played off of these from the 1651 list and sort of added some of his own.

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And in this book, he says we have been cold, meaning love is wanting.

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I'm going to quote from him here. Love is wanting, deep love, love strong as death, love such as made

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Jeremiah weep in secret places for the pride of Israel. And Paul speaks even weeping of the enemies of the cross of Christ.

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When we go about our lives in the coldness, and again,

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I'm going to say self -centered sort of way, that people don't have to hear our words to sense that we don't really care for them.

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It sort of destroys all witness, doesn't it? And I mean, it's easy to fall into that kind of sentimentalism that says, well,

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God is love and all we need to do is love. But there's a lot of truth to that. If what we're doing is not with love, as Paul says, are we not just like a tinkling symbol?

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I mean, we're empty, we're completely devoid of the power of the

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Holy Spirit. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to The Whole Council on your favorite podcast app.

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