Pride: The Assassin of Purpose

"But the LORD said to me, 'Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles!' The crowd listened until Paul said that word. Then they all began to shout, 'Away with such a fellow! He isn't fit to live!' They yelled, threw off their coats, and tossed handfuls of dust into the air." ~ Acts 22:21-22

Now, I have to admit that I find this quite comical. Here is Paul in chains in Jerusalem after being carried off and beaten by the Jewish leaders because they ASSUMED he had taken a Gentile into the Temple grounds since they had seen him in the company of a Gentile, Trophimus of Ephesus. They beat him and then the Romans come rushing in because of the uproar and now Paul is addressing the Jews, giving testimony of what had happened in his life to turn him from Jewish enforcer to Christian evangelist. Things are going well until it gets to the word Gentile. At this word the Jews go bananas. I get the image in my head of an Animal Planet show about monkeys. Something happens and the group of apes goes berserk, pounding their chests, howling, and kicking up dust, creating quite a ruckus. Now back to our DIGNIFIED Jewish leaders, dressed in robes, tassles, turbans, etc. Calm, quite, and civilized one moment and then Paul says the magic word, Gentile! Suddenly they are screaming, throwing their clothes off, and tossing up dust. What a sight! I wish I could get a clip of that on the Soup. I could make money with a video like that. Prettified rabbis and leaders one moment, rampaging apes the next. And what's the cause of this? Pride, pure and simple.

The Jews were selected by God centuries ago to be His chosen people, a nation that He chose from among the rest of the earth through whom He could display His power, love, grace, mercy, justice, and sovereignty over all creation. Not only did He choose them, but he protected them, gave them a homeland, blessed them among the nations, miraculously displayed His power in and through them, all as a witness to the earth that the God of Israel is the One and Only God. He placed them in Israel, positioned perfectly along the major trade route for all the nations. Any nation traveling North or South or to the sea had to go through Israel. They were set up to be a light to the Gentiles, displaying the glory of the Immortal God. Instead of seizing the opportunity afforded them and humbly allowing God to do His work through them, they became prideful in their position. They saw themselves as superior to the Gentiles, the very people they were supposed to be providing light to. They became so prideful that they adopted an air of separatism and exclusivism, arrogantly detesting all non-Jews, so much so that the very word Gentile would send them into an uproar. Their pride in their position, one that was not based on their merit or worth or importance but on God's choice, in effect killed their effectiveness in achieving God's purpose in election, to display His power and sovereignty to all nations. The coming of Messiah was the climax of His interaction with them and yet they missed the point because of their pride.

Now, before you start amening all this talk of Jews, point the finger back at the Christian church. Have we become the same? Have we allowed our pride in being "saved" to kill our effectiveness? Have we forgotten that we are only ingrafted branches, not superior to any other person, especially the Jews? We have been given grace and they have rejected it. Jesus is the Jewish Messiah and our Savior because He died for all men, not just one nation. Often I believe that our pride in our rituals, rites, ceremonies, agendas, doctrines, and traditions assassinates our purpose, we exchange the purpose of God for the way it has always been. We're afraid to even discuss the lost because they might dirty our sanctuaries, curse in our pews, smoke in our foyers, and come strolling into our services wearing leather, short skirts, ratty clothes, covered in tatooes and piercings. At the very sight of someone not like us we have the tendency to cause a ruckues. Instead of realizing our purpose in election, to share and display the love and mercy of an Immortal God, we get riled up because someone wants to invite the bikers into service or go out to minister to prostitutes. We have been saved by grace, not because of anything we have done or because we deserve it. God chose to save us, God chose to forgive us, God chose to display us in the world to display His glory, not so we can build our traditions and churches. We are God's trophies on display for the world, contingent upon His grace and not a necessity. He doesn't need us but He wants us. Paul says it best, "We are paraded in front of the world, as slaves in a procession. To some we are the smell of life and to others the scent of death."

Dear God, forgive me for my pride in my position of election. I'm not worthy of your grace, but thank you for it. Use me as a light to the lost and keep me from being a road block for them to enter.