Confidence, Not Pride

I don't hear much about demon possession... It must be a rare happening nowadays. I've only heard it from friends who went to remote places in Africa for mission trips - but confronting someone with wild convulsions and destructive behavior would be... kinda scary.

Anyhow, Jesus heals him at an instant, and everyone who was watching were amazed at the greatness of God. Through this boy, I think Jesus is teaching us how to evangelize - that 1) it requires faith, no matter how difficult it may seem to reach out to that person, and 2) to the evangelizing Christian, receiving credit/praise for bringing salvation should not become the focus. If we evangelize with little faith but big desire to be seen by others, God's greatness cannot be shown.

Maybe this was the case with the disciples - they were probably scared or lost hope seeing that they're too weak to heal such a severe case of demon possession. Jesus was quick to rebuke them for their lack of faith, but what's funny is that soon afterwards the disciples started arguing who'd be the greatest. Their view of salvation was freedom of Israel from the Romans, and if Jesus was to pull off this amazing feat, they'd logically become the top ranking bureaucrats alongside Jesus. The disciples failed to see the real meaning of salvation and the way Jesus would be bringing it. Only after seeing with their own eyes the humility and love shown on the cross were they able to become the effective cornerstones of Christian churches that would carry the gospel message to this day.

Even the times when we successfully reach out to someone, we become proud (and rightfully so), and that gives us confidence to take a step further. But to us sinners, even that confidence and easily become pride, and pride can easily take away from the real joy we can experience from God - spoiling the entire show. To me personally, worship leading in EM has been a huge blessing and many people also told me worship was blessing and powerful - but on every Sunday morning, I have to repent for the ways I'm solely depending on our team's ability so I can just wing it and get by with similar "performance" as the week before. Compliments are always pleasing to hear, but that shouldn't be the goal of my ministry. I have to lose myself, to be completely immersed in God's presence when I'm worshiping.

So... one thing I learned today is that I want to have confidence in God (and hold on to it), not pride in myself.

My application is to... well, I gotta prepare for a sermon for this Sunday. Please pray for me. I'll apply today's message by being kind to my officemates. =D Believe me, Caltrans can be a pretty hostile place - and with everybody trying to get things done by stepping over bureaucracy and other bothersome people, there are many people who feel disrespected. My office especially is notorious for all that drama. But after I made that commitment to be kind to my officemates today, so far it's been good and things are running pretty smoothly.