It’s Not About You

May You increase my greatness and turn to comfort me.  Psalm 71:21  NASB My greatness – What was the opening line of the vastly popular book, The Purpose-Driven Life?  Oh, yes, “It’s not about you.”  A sort of oxymoron, don’t you think?  The book sold millions of copies precisely because readers believed that it was in fact all…

Ego, Again

My enemies have taunted me all day long; those who deride me have used my name as a curse.  Psalm 102:8  NASB Deride – The psalmist finally gets down to the real reason for his complaint.  It took a while.  All those verses about how he feels—abandoned, anxious, abused, avoided, alone—come down to this: “My enemies taunt me and…

What Greeks Hate

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,   Philippians 2:3-5  NASB Humility of mind –…

What Greeks Hate

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,   Philippians 2:3-5 NASB Humility of mind –…

Who Matters?

So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. 1 Corinthians 3:7 NASB Is anything – Paul is pretty important. In fact, without Paul the present version of the Christian church would probably not exist. Oh, I know. Paul is misrepresented and misread by…

Negative Ego

When it happened, I was caught completely off guard.  I couldn’t believe that the old temptations, put aside long ago, were back, demanding attention.  At first I was confused.  Since I didn’t see it coming, I was unprepared.  I felt like someone had just turned back the clock about three years.  I cried out to…