Pride vs. Grace

One cartoon in today’s newspaper has a character worried about being cursed by God. Another character tells him that all he has to do is repent and everything will be okay. The first character says that sounds too easy, then adds that it also sounds too desperate.

I’m thinking about his reaction to repentance. He says easy, but if repentance is easy, why then do people, including myself, resist it? If all I need to do is turn from my mistakes, errors and sins, how is it that I make excuses, blame others, refuse to take responsibility, and keep doing the same stuff over and over?

Desperate? I understand that part too. The cartoon character wants to escape the anger of God or the consequences of his actions. But true repentance is more than “turn or burn” and more than a desperate promise to change just so God will take away the consequences for what we do. That makes genuine repentance neither easy nor an act of desperation.

In a passage about God not contending forever with those who resist Him, the Bible explains how grace works, and how receiving a renewed spirit belongs to a submissive heart. Isaiah 57:15 says:

For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”

The Creator of the universe lives in eternity, yet graciously offers also to live in human hearts. He gives new life to those who will receive it and looks for a contrite spirit, an attitude of nonresistance, in those who belong to Him. This is evidence that He lives in that person. My devotional reading says this (slightly edited to shorten):

O what a mystery that God should have two dwelling places—the “heaven of heavens” that “cannot contain Him,” and the humble, broken, and contrite heart! But in order that the Lord of heaven might have a place in which He could live and lodge, God gives to His people gifts and graces; for He cannot come and dwell in the carnal mind, in our rebellious nature, in a heart full of enmity and wickedness. He therefore makes a lodging-place for Himself. . . . His abode is that holy, divine nature which is given at regeneration, and which is called “the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.” This is why Paul said, “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

To avoid or escape the wrath of God on sin, I need to run to God in full recognition of my need; I am a sinful person. I must live by the power He gives me in my new nature, not mix it or fiddle with any of the pride that is part of my sinful self.

The reason repentance is so difficult is that sinful people are proud, and pride has this odd and contradictory quality; when it rules, it refuses to admit that it exists, for if that should happen, pride must instantly dissolve.

This morning I came to this time with God with an attitude of I want what I want. I asked God to show me how to get it, how to fix this issue that I want solved, and He gives me this verse. The thing that I want isn’t my biggest problem; it is the pride behind my desire. If I had this thing that I want, I would look better to those around me. I could boast a little too. Pride motivated my request.

The last line in that cartoon should have been my first clue that I am no different from a goofy line drawing. The second character tells the first that he will easily translate into a pillar of salt, a reference to Lot’s wife. She might have been fleeing sinful Sodom, but against the command of God, she looked back (not wanting to leave?) and fell under the curse He put on that sinful place. While she looked as if she was running from sin, she really didn’t want to repent or be submissive to God.

I missed it in the cartoon but Isaiah 57:15 hits me square. Even though I know that God lives in my heart through faith in Jesus Christ, I cannot take grace for granted. It doesn’t matter that my sins are forgiven and my place in eternity is secure; God still resists my pride and desires that I have a humble heart and a contrite spirit. I can’t ask Him to do things for me if my heart and motivations are vain and proud.