| John's Index | Greater Emmanuel | Email John |
Ego-colored Glasses
By John R. Gavazzoni
We're all familiar with the expression, "rose-colored glasses," meaning seeing something, a situation, a person, etc., as "rosy," when, in fact, what or who is being seen may not be rosy-attractive at all, or not so much so. It's likewise quite common, even in the case of believers, to read scripture through ego-colored glasses, and so interpreting what's written as supporting the ego's need to be in control. The fleshly man is always a "control freak," presuming that it is he who makes it possible for God to do what He desires only as much as he, Mr. Control Freak, makes it possible by his choosing and doing.
He may speak of the need of God's grace, but really, what he believes is that it's not God's grace he needs, but rather it's God's grace needing him. There's the way a certain verse of scripture is often interpreted looking through obsessive, compulsive, flesh-energized, ego-colored glasses, that exemplifies, "Oh, boy, I've found the perfect verse that proves [with a little help from God] it's really up to me to get along successfully on The Way."
The verse: "As a man thinketh in His heart, so is He." (KJV) is read by Mr. Control Freak through his ego-colored glasses as, "I can be according to how and what I think." That verse, probably more than any other, has been used to support the "name it, and claim it" approach to the Christian life. Our dear, departed friend and beloved brother, Stacy Wood, called it, "blab it and grab it." But what the verse is really saying is that what a man is in his heart, he (accordingly) speaks. That's more than evident when you compare the above verse with, "out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh." (KJV)
We speak what we think, and we speak what we think out of the abundance of our hearts, therefore, our need is not about speaking in such a way as to become this or that kind of person, our need is for heart-transformation, a healing transformation, for "the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked above all things." (KJV) Note: "wicked" is not the best translation of the Hebrew. The better rendering is, "the heart is deceitful and desperately sick."
The deceitful heart is a heart full of deceit, which makes it desperately sick. When some preacher claims that by making the right confession, we can become spiritually successful (which usually boils down to becoming financially successful), he's got the cart before the horse. Get the heart right, and out of the cured heart, will come words of edification. That confessing saint will find himself in a sweet cycle, as the heart is healed, healing words will come forth both for himself and others. But we must have the right starting point, and that starting point is, "create in me a clean heart, Oh, Lord, and renew a right spirit within me." The hymnist with great pathos expressed our need: "prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Take my heart, oh, take and seal it, with Thy Spirit from above."
| John's Index | Greater Emmanuel | Email John |
