Listening to a song by the band Stryper inspired this thought. Here are the words to the song first of all:
Saturday night's a lie, I follow every cue
Sunday is sanctified, I smile and take the pew
Monday it's back to school - Am I learning, not at all
Tuesday and Wednesday, Thursday, Friday I just crawl
Seeds that were growing have been dried up by my flesh
I walk the walk and talk the talk but where's the rest
I could have everything even what's behind the stars
But I built my prison without windows, without bars
Gotta fight, gotta stop living a lie
Gotta fall, gotta lay down and die
Gotta stand and run to the other side
Gotta live or it's Murder By Pride
Sunday is sanctified, I smile and take the pew
Monday it's back to school - Am I learning, not at all
Tuesday and Wednesday, Thursday, Friday I just crawl
Seeds that were growing have been dried up by my flesh
I walk the walk and talk the talk but where's the rest
I could have everything even what's behind the stars
But I built my prison without windows, without bars
Gotta fight, gotta stop living a lie
Gotta fall, gotta lay down and die
Gotta stand and run to the other side
Gotta live or it's Murder By Pride
Watching people, including the one in the mirror, and it's easy to see that we live for ourselves too much. It seems like all we care about at times is how we feel or what makes us feel better about our life, our lifestyles, our thoughts, and our actions. As the song says our seeds (our ways of life) have been dried up by the flesh. The flesh causes us to be blind. We start to focus on our own wants and desires of the flesh and this in turn causes us to lose focus on living right. We build our own prisons. We live secret lives. We live lies.
When we live for ourselves we do these things:
When we live for ourselves we do these things:
- We challenge God's word and authority. This causes us to think less of moral standards or even lose a standard to live by. When standards of God are lost then humanity suffers chaos. A world without Godly standards is called 'hell".
- We exalt ourselves over the wisdom of God. Humanity that can't even control their own finances, marriages, and other issues in life think they can actually get away with making decisions without God or at least the wisdom He has passed on in the Scriptures? What makes us think we are right?
- We feel we are the most important person in existence. People do not listen to wisdom. They feel just because they think it then it must be right. Everyone has a closed mind or turn a blind eye to what they are doing because if they are proven wrong then they have to change.
All of these can be summed up into one word, pride. One being did that a long time ago and a special place has been created for him. Pride came before his fall and pride will come before our fall.
Sometimes we have to put our own desires away. When we live our own secret little lives we not only lie to the world but we lie to ourselves. Yet, we keep going on living that way. We have to stop living a lie. Just because things feel okay to do or we no longer feel bad about some of our actions does not meant that we are living right. We all need certain standards to live by. Just because God's morals are not what we feel are for everybody does not mean His moral standards are wrong. We may think it's okay to release our anxieties with alcohol, but it's not. We may think it's okay to indulge ourselves with "feel good" activities because it has been accepted by the world, but it's not. We may think our wrongful sexual desires are okay to pursue because it makes us feel good and wanted, but it's not. We may think it's okay to get revenge or to react in a vengeful way because we feel people deserve it, but it's not. Just because certain things make us happy and/or we do not understand why God says certain things are wrong does not mean we do not have to abide by His standards. Sometimes we have to lay down our flesh and die to this world. If we keep on living for the flesh then we let our pride murder us.
