My Daily Life and Thoughts while in San Diego |
List of Best Posts
This blog is where I express myself to the world or at least to those who might stop by to read what I post 
. Maybe God will use what I post (I am a Christian and this blog will have a most decidedly Christian bent to it) to good effect in the lives of my readers.
I may turn some of my posts into a book. I may cease blogging here altogether. Who knows. But for now..I am content to post away in this, my own little corner of the world.
Rather than reading through my now lengthy list of posts you may wish to read what I consider to be my very best posts or you can just read the posts that deal with a single subject category that might interest you.
Please know that I am open to any input on any topic I write about. If you have something to say about anything you see written here please....feel free to speak up in the form of leaving a comment or sending me a PM (private message).
And if you are in San Diego and wish to meet the one and only Carlos (that's me)...drop me a private message. I always enjoy meeting one of my readers!
Thanks.
Carlos
PS. If you want to follow my blog such that you will get an email when I write new posts you can subscribe to my blog.
. Maybe God will use what I post (I am a Christian and this blog will have a most decidedly Christian bent to it) to good effect in the lives of my readers. I may turn some of my posts into a book. I may cease blogging here altogether. Who knows. But for now..I am content to post away in this, my own little corner of the world.
Rather than reading through my now lengthy list of posts you may wish to read what I consider to be my very best posts or you can just read the posts that deal with a single subject category that might interest you.
Please know that I am open to any input on any topic I write about. If you have something to say about anything you see written here please....feel free to speak up in the form of leaving a comment or sending me a PM (private message).
And if you are in San Diego and wish to meet the one and only Carlos (that's me
)...drop me a private message. I always enjoy meeting one of my readers!Thanks.
Carlos
PS. If you want to follow my blog such that you will get an email when I write new posts you can subscribe to my blog.
My Hypocrisy and Arrogance and God's Continuing Provision for My Needs
Posted 02-19-2010 at 12:14 PM by carlos123
This morning has been a real eye opener for me and I want to blog about it. Both for my own sake to remember the things the Lord showed me and to correct some things I have said on this blog in the past about Christians.
In the past I have tended to view the Christians in general as just so many hypocrites. When they have fallen short of being all that God might want them to be I have tended to judge them as such with a condemning spirit. Looking down on my fellow Christians in my heart as being less spiritual than me. Of being blind in a way that I am not. Of not knowing the first thing about walking in faith.
The Lord showed me this morning that the spirit with which I walked in condemnation of fellow Christians was not right. In fact downright evil on my own part.
And how did the Lord show me that?
Earlier this week a Christian invited me to their home for dinner and perhaps a basketball game. A nice thing. Indeed a wonderful thing compared to my interaction with most Christians where about the only thing that ever happens is that I am invited to a Sunday church service and little else.
Today was the day that this was supposed to happen but this particular Christian did not follow through on their invitation (at least as of this morning). I've heard nothing further from him about getting together and it looked this morning like yet another Christian had let me down. Had spoken all well and good about their desire to get to know me and otherwise interact with me on a more personal level than just sitting at a Sunday church service and enjoying some fellowship dougnuts but had not followed through.
I began to sense in me that spirit of condemnation rising up to condemn this Christian in my heart. To look upon them as yet another hypocrite with nice sounding words of love and faith but whose life did not live up to that such that I ended up getting hurt and let down once more.
At the same time I began to sense the Lord wanting to say something to me.
It dawned on me that Paul the Apostle sometimes found himself in dire straights. I mean dire in every sense of the word. Homeless, poorly clothed, hungry, all but destitute. Like men condemned to die who were paraded before the multitude leading up to being cruelly killed at the Colosseum.
And he found himself in such circumstances while many of the Christians he was ministering to were well fed, rich, nicely clothed, and otherwise walking in material wealth.
And here is what clinched it for me...what was Paul's attitude toward such Christians? Did he, like I tend to do, condemn them? Did he come down hard on them and belittle their faith? Did he point out how short they fell in a spirit of being judgmental and holier than thou?
No!
His reaction to the Christians was one of LOVE! Yes...he spoke of their need to repent from their hypocrisy and shallow hearted walk with God but he did so for their sake and not his.
Paul did not point out the smugness of the Christians around him so that they would wake up to his great need. Rather he pointed to their smugness that they might repent in their hearts and walk before the Lord as they should have. He used his need to highlight their smugness so that they might see their lack of walking in Christlike love themselves better.
Not to have them meet his needs but rather for the greater honor and glory of God!
Paul was not asking the Corinthians to experience needs themselves. He was asking them to imitate the attitude of his heart to walk before God wholeheartedly even if it meant falling into need as a result of their commitment to do the right thing by God. As had happened to him.
Have I spoken about the Christians and their hypocrisy wherever it has indeed been that for the greater honor and glory of God? For the most part...NO!
I have spoken to condemn and judge and otherwise tear down what I have seen in the Christians that falls short of God's righteousness and love.
And why have I spoken thus?
The Lord showed me a possible explanation for my own reaction.
You see my problem with the Christians with respect to my bad attitudes toward them has been a reflection of my bad attitudes toward the Lord Himself!
What has been my attitude when God has seemingly left me stranded? When I have fallen into need and God Himself has not seen fit to sell a measly single cow of the thousands that He owns on a thousand hills to meet my need?
I mean GOD, the all powerful, all knowing being who inhabits the heavens! What has been my attitude when He has allowed one of His children, me, to fall into need?
My first reaction has generally been to blame God. I have spoken in my heart if not out loud that God doesn't care. That He is unable or unwilling to help me. That He sits on a heavenly throne dispensing commands that I am to obey perfectly while I grovel about in my need for food or whatever else I am in need of.
I have been resentful toward God.
While it is true that I have come around eventually to submitting to God's sovereignty in allowing the circumstances He has allowed into my life and have ultimately seen His provision my initial attitude has not been good when faced with very bad circumstances and need.
My bad attitudes towards the Christians has simply been a reflection of my bad attitude toward God when He has seemed to let me down.
The same rotten attitude surfaces when the Christians let me down.
The change in attitude that I must learn to walk in starts with a change in attitude toward God when He seems to let me down.
The Lord gave me a most wonderful chance to walk in this new attitude this morning.
You see I had all but run out of food again. So I walked to behind a local grocery store to see if I might be able to find some baked goods behind the store that I could eat. This particular store puts out their expired food once in a while into a grocery cart that they leave out back. It is common knowledge among the homeless around here that this store does this. They don't do it all the time but enough to where I have been able to survive on hauls of such food that have seen me through times when I had no other food to eat.
When I arrived behind the store this morning, once again there was no food there (the food is not there all the time just once in a while). And with this Christian who had invited me to eat dinner with them later today having let me down I had no means of getting any food today having all but exhausted my funds.
Unlike in times past when I would have started down the path to grumbling and lambasting God in my heart for not being a good Father to me...I chose instead, in view of what God had been showing me, to thank the Lord. That He knew what He was doing and that He was sovereign. Loving and gracious. And I meant my thanks.
I then walked to the local Trader Joe's to implement my backup plan of getting one banana with about the last bit of change I had in my wallet and to grab their food tasting tid bit for breakfast.
As I got into line for their food tasting tid bit the lady in front of me got two little pancakes and some syrup. I on the other hand got just one little pancake.
I got ONE little pancake and the lady right in front got TWO!
But instead of starting down the path of blaming God and otherwise questioning Him as to why He would allow such a thing in view of my need for food...I genuinely thanked Him, ate my one little pancake with gratitude and went on my way.
Before I headed back home I decided to check behind the grocery store once more and lo and behold there was a whole cart full of baked goods!
I threw away my banana peel in the nearest garbage can and then proceeded to load up on the food I had found.
I carried just about as much as I could carry home with me and now have about two or three days worth of food to survive on.
God continues to use the need in my life for food to teach me. He used that need last week to initially get me to start interacting with the Christians again when I decided to go to a home group that had a dinner get together and he is using a continuing need for that in my life now to highlight and draw out of me attitudes and perspectives in me that need to change.
I have been a great hypocrite myself. In that I have talked up a storm about God's love and otherwise about how we should be as Christians while being almost completely blind about the hypocrisy of not walking in love myself toward the Christians that I have seen falling short of all that God wants them to be.
I have been blind to my own need to walk in love.
Once again my eyes have been opened to the continuing judgmentalism that lies within my heart.
And to how my rotten attitudes toward God when it seems that He has let me down infect my attitudes toward the Christians when they let me down.
God has ultimately NEVER let me down. Christians, being human, will continue to do so. But if I keep my eyes focused on God and learn to walk more consistently in the truths of who He is and what He is like, believing those truths even in the face of what I sometimes see that undermines or otherwise seems to contradict those truths, I will be enabled to walk in love.
To point out the failings of the Church not to condemn but to help my brothers and sisters in Christ walk in greater love for the honor and glory of our God.
I will be enabled to be like Paul. Suffering need but not blaming God or the Christians and waiting patiently on God to meet my need in His own good timing.
I will learn to walk in contentment. Satisfied in the knowledge that God is with me and that He is all that I really need in life.
You know as I re-read what I said above it dawned on me that going further back into my childhood that I once blamed my father outloud for what I perceived as his lack of loving care.
I don't remember the exact circumstances but I distinctly remember blaming him and saying so to his face. I think I wasn't getting what I wanted from him with respect to getting a candy or something and I blasted him with both barrels. I remember sensing how much that hurt him and that despite all he had done and continued to do in my life to provide for me that I blamed him for not giving me ALL that I wanted when I wanted it.
How ironic that I transferred that absolutely rotten attitude to God as my heavenly Father such that I often react that way toward Him. Blaming Him for not giving me all that I want or think I need when I want it to be provided.
Like the little boy throwing a heart tantrum at my earthly father I throw a heart tantrum directed at God when He doesn't do what I want Him to do.
Praise God for His gracious mercy and love and for his unbelievable patience with me. For helping me see what I would not otherwise see and for hearing what I would not otherwise hear but for His presence in my life through His Spirit.
Carlos
UPDATE
With respect to the hurt that I gave my father when I blasted him for not giving me what I wanted the Lord gave me a chance to apologize to him and show appreciation to him for all he had done for me later in life. A chance that I am thankful I had.
The Christian who invited me to eat and watch a basketball game with him finally got a hold of me in the middle of what I was writing above such that we will indeed get together later today. The timing of God in all that happened through which He taught me what I needed to learn was, as always, impeccable!
Some of you may wonder why I share these personal experiences through a blog. Why I even bother. It's because the Lord can use my mistakes and fumblings and the ways he interacts with me and teaches me to help others see Him which, when all is said and done, is my ultimate purpose for having this blog at all.
In the past I have tended to view the Christians in general as just so many hypocrites. When they have fallen short of being all that God might want them to be I have tended to judge them as such with a condemning spirit. Looking down on my fellow Christians in my heart as being less spiritual than me. Of being blind in a way that I am not. Of not knowing the first thing about walking in faith.
The Lord showed me this morning that the spirit with which I walked in condemnation of fellow Christians was not right. In fact downright evil on my own part.
And how did the Lord show me that?
Earlier this week a Christian invited me to their home for dinner and perhaps a basketball game. A nice thing. Indeed a wonderful thing compared to my interaction with most Christians where about the only thing that ever happens is that I am invited to a Sunday church service and little else.
Today was the day that this was supposed to happen but this particular Christian did not follow through on their invitation (at least as of this morning). I've heard nothing further from him about getting together and it looked this morning like yet another Christian had let me down. Had spoken all well and good about their desire to get to know me and otherwise interact with me on a more personal level than just sitting at a Sunday church service and enjoying some fellowship dougnuts but had not followed through.
I began to sense in me that spirit of condemnation rising up to condemn this Christian in my heart. To look upon them as yet another hypocrite with nice sounding words of love and faith but whose life did not live up to that such that I ended up getting hurt and let down once more.
At the same time I began to sense the Lord wanting to say something to me.
It dawned on me that Paul the Apostle sometimes found himself in dire straights. I mean dire in every sense of the word. Homeless, poorly clothed, hungry, all but destitute. Like men condemned to die who were paraded before the multitude leading up to being cruelly killed at the Colosseum.
And he found himself in such circumstances while many of the Christians he was ministering to were well fed, rich, nicely clothed, and otherwise walking in material wealth.
And here is what clinched it for me...what was Paul's attitude toward such Christians? Did he, like I tend to do, condemn them? Did he come down hard on them and belittle their faith? Did he point out how short they fell in a spirit of being judgmental and holier than thou?
No!
His reaction to the Christians was one of LOVE! Yes...he spoke of their need to repent from their hypocrisy and shallow hearted walk with God but he did so for their sake and not his.
Paul did not point out the smugness of the Christians around him so that they would wake up to his great need. Rather he pointed to their smugness that they might repent in their hearts and walk before the Lord as they should have. He used his need to highlight their smugness so that they might see their lack of walking in Christlike love themselves better.
Not to have them meet his needs but rather for the greater honor and glory of God!
Quote:
1 Cor 4:7
For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?
You are already filled, you have already become rich, you have become kings without us; and indeed, I wish that you had become kings so that we also might reign with you.
For, I think, God has exhibited us apostles last of all, as men condemned to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men.
We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are prudent in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are distinguished, but we are without honor.
To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless;
and we toil, working with our own hands; when we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure;
when we are slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things, even until now.
I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children.
For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.
Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me.
For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?
You are already filled, you have already become rich, you have become kings without us; and indeed, I wish that you had become kings so that we also might reign with you.
For, I think, God has exhibited us apostles last of all, as men condemned to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men.
We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are prudent in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are distinguished, but we are without honor.
To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless;
and we toil, working with our own hands; when we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure;
when we are slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things, even until now.
I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children.
For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.
Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me.
Have I spoken about the Christians and their hypocrisy wherever it has indeed been that for the greater honor and glory of God? For the most part...NO!
I have spoken to condemn and judge and otherwise tear down what I have seen in the Christians that falls short of God's righteousness and love.
And why have I spoken thus?
The Lord showed me a possible explanation for my own reaction.
You see my problem with the Christians with respect to my bad attitudes toward them has been a reflection of my bad attitudes toward the Lord Himself!
What has been my attitude when God has seemingly left me stranded? When I have fallen into need and God Himself has not seen fit to sell a measly single cow of the thousands that He owns on a thousand hills to meet my need?
I mean GOD, the all powerful, all knowing being who inhabits the heavens! What has been my attitude when He has allowed one of His children, me, to fall into need?
My first reaction has generally been to blame God. I have spoken in my heart if not out loud that God doesn't care. That He is unable or unwilling to help me. That He sits on a heavenly throne dispensing commands that I am to obey perfectly while I grovel about in my need for food or whatever else I am in need of.
I have been resentful toward God.
While it is true that I have come around eventually to submitting to God's sovereignty in allowing the circumstances He has allowed into my life and have ultimately seen His provision my initial attitude has not been good when faced with very bad circumstances and need.
My bad attitudes towards the Christians has simply been a reflection of my bad attitude toward God when He has seemed to let me down.
The same rotten attitude surfaces when the Christians let me down.
The change in attitude that I must learn to walk in starts with a change in attitude toward God when He seems to let me down.
The Lord gave me a most wonderful chance to walk in this new attitude this morning.
You see I had all but run out of food again. So I walked to behind a local grocery store to see if I might be able to find some baked goods behind the store that I could eat. This particular store puts out their expired food once in a while into a grocery cart that they leave out back. It is common knowledge among the homeless around here that this store does this. They don't do it all the time but enough to where I have been able to survive on hauls of such food that have seen me through times when I had no other food to eat.
When I arrived behind the store this morning, once again there was no food there (the food is not there all the time just once in a while). And with this Christian who had invited me to eat dinner with them later today having let me down I had no means of getting any food today having all but exhausted my funds.
Unlike in times past when I would have started down the path to grumbling and lambasting God in my heart for not being a good Father to me...I chose instead, in view of what God had been showing me, to thank the Lord. That He knew what He was doing and that He was sovereign. Loving and gracious. And I meant my thanks.
I then walked to the local Trader Joe's to implement my backup plan of getting one banana with about the last bit of change I had in my wallet and to grab their food tasting tid bit for breakfast.
As I got into line for their food tasting tid bit the lady in front of me got two little pancakes and some syrup. I on the other hand got just one little pancake.
I got ONE little pancake and the lady right in front got TWO!
But instead of starting down the path of blaming God and otherwise questioning Him as to why He would allow such a thing in view of my need for food...I genuinely thanked Him, ate my one little pancake with gratitude and went on my way.
Before I headed back home I decided to check behind the grocery store once more and lo and behold there was a whole cart full of baked goods!
I threw away my banana peel in the nearest garbage can and then proceeded to load up on the food I had found.
I carried just about as much as I could carry home with me and now have about two or three days worth of food to survive on.
God continues to use the need in my life for food to teach me. He used that need last week to initially get me to start interacting with the Christians again when I decided to go to a home group that had a dinner get together and he is using a continuing need for that in my life now to highlight and draw out of me attitudes and perspectives in me that need to change.
I have been a great hypocrite myself. In that I have talked up a storm about God's love and otherwise about how we should be as Christians while being almost completely blind about the hypocrisy of not walking in love myself toward the Christians that I have seen falling short of all that God wants them to be.
I have been blind to my own need to walk in love.
Once again my eyes have been opened to the continuing judgmentalism that lies within my heart.
And to how my rotten attitudes toward God when it seems that He has let me down infect my attitudes toward the Christians when they let me down.
God has ultimately NEVER let me down. Christians, being human, will continue to do so. But if I keep my eyes focused on God and learn to walk more consistently in the truths of who He is and what He is like, believing those truths even in the face of what I sometimes see that undermines or otherwise seems to contradict those truths, I will be enabled to walk in love.
To point out the failings of the Church not to condemn but to help my brothers and sisters in Christ walk in greater love for the honor and glory of our God.
I will be enabled to be like Paul. Suffering need but not blaming God or the Christians and waiting patiently on God to meet my need in His own good timing.
I will learn to walk in contentment. Satisfied in the knowledge that God is with me and that He is all that I really need in life.
Quote:
Hebrews 13:5
Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, "I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU,"
so that we confidently say, "THE LORD IS MY HELPER, I WILL NOT BE AFRAID. WHAT WILL MAN DO TO ME?"
Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, "I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU,"
so that we confidently say, "THE LORD IS MY HELPER, I WILL NOT BE AFRAID. WHAT WILL MAN DO TO ME?"
I don't remember the exact circumstances but I distinctly remember blaming him and saying so to his face. I think I wasn't getting what I wanted from him with respect to getting a candy or something and I blasted him with both barrels. I remember sensing how much that hurt him and that despite all he had done and continued to do in my life to provide for me that I blamed him for not giving me ALL that I wanted when I wanted it.
How ironic that I transferred that absolutely rotten attitude to God as my heavenly Father such that I often react that way toward Him. Blaming Him for not giving me all that I want or think I need when I want it to be provided.
Like the little boy throwing a heart tantrum at my earthly father I throw a heart tantrum directed at God when He doesn't do what I want Him to do.
Praise God for His gracious mercy and love and for his unbelievable patience with me. For helping me see what I would not otherwise see and for hearing what I would not otherwise hear but for His presence in my life through His Spirit.
Carlos
UPDATE
With respect to the hurt that I gave my father when I blasted him for not giving me what I wanted the Lord gave me a chance to apologize to him and show appreciation to him for all he had done for me later in life. A chance that I am thankful I had.
The Christian who invited me to eat and watch a basketball game with him finally got a hold of me in the middle of what I was writing above such that we will indeed get together later today. The timing of God in all that happened through which He taught me what I needed to learn was, as always, impeccable!
Some of you may wonder why I share these personal experiences through a blog. Why I even bother. It's because the Lord can use my mistakes and fumblings and the ways he interacts with me and teaches me to help others see Him which, when all is said and done, is my ultimate purpose for having this blog at all.
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