All of us have troublesome areas in our lives that need to be acknowledged and honestly dealt with, but many of us refuse to admit it. Denial is not a river in Egypt; it’s a river that runs through our hearts, a delusion-producing way of thinking that robs us of freedom and power.
Denial manifests itself in a number of lies that we tell ourselves. One of the most common is believing, “I am a good person; any faults I have are because of someone else. I’m just a victim.”
The Church of Laodicea had this kind of denial. Jesus told them: “You say, ‘I am rich, with everything I want; I don’t need a thing!’ And you don’t realize that spiritually you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked” (Revelation 3:17).
Jesus went out of his way to help all kinds of people – except those who thought they didn’t need any help. He told these self-righteous people, “It is the sick who need a doctor, not those in good health. My purpose is to invite sinners to turn from their sins, not to spend my time with those who think themselves already good enough” (Luke 5:31-32).
I sometimes talk to folks who say they want to become Christians and go to church, but they must first “clean up their act.” My response is usually something profound like, “Huh?”
To me, it’s like a person who gets hit by a car – ribs broken, clothes torn and bloody, but when the ambulance comes the person says, “Wait, I can’t go to the hospital looking like this! I need to go home and get cleaned up, then I’ll go.”
The church was created, in part, to be a hospital for sinners! We’re to bandage one another up with love and encouragement, but first we must take personal responsibility for our problems.
A second lie that denial leads us to believe is this: “I cannot do anything about the problems I have.” Some people are natural-born cynics. They figure you’re born in one hospital and you die in another, and the purpose of life is to get from the one hospital to the other without messing up too bad. While it’s certainly true that life is not a bed of roses, there is something that can make a huge difference between those two hospital visits: a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
The Bible is filled with passages that teach us how Christ can empower us to accomplish everything we need to accomplish. So why do so many Christians feel powerless and bound?
That’s not an easy question to answer. For some of us, it’s the natural consequence of focusing on our wants and desires rather than on doing things God’s way. For others, it is the result of underestimating the power God wants to build into our lives.
The Apostle Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 offer us some valuable counsel: “It is true that I am an ordinary, weak human being, but I don’t use human plans and methods to win my battles. I use God’s mighty weapons, not those made by men, to knock down the devil’s strongholds.”
Henry Harris is lead pastor of Rolling Hills Community Church, 330 Tres Pinos Road in Hollister. If you have questions or comments, please visit the church Web site at www.rollinghillsfamily.com, e-mail pa*********@****************ly.com or call (831) 636-5353.
