Left to our own vices, we’re so self-absorbed and narcissistic that judging others becomes our daily exercise.
Some Tiny Words. Big Life. posts are uplifting to this Blogmeister. Not this one…
What do the words “Left to our own vices” mean to you? To me, it’s sorta like the old saying “Doing our own thing”.
Either way you define it, it’s not a good quality. It basically means that we’re thinking of ourselves above all else.
Is watching out for ourselves a bad thing? Of course not. There are times that you have to look out for yourself. Like if you’re hungry… It’s okay to make yourself a sandwich. 🙂
As with most things that get posted on Tiny Words. Big Life., the issue is in our heads. It’s how we’re thinking that gets us into trouble.
In today’s Tiny Words. Big Life. post, we hear Timothy describing people that we (Christians) will encounter during the last days. If you take a minute to read it, you’ll probably feel the way I do… I see a lot of that going on today.
Although the last days are always a relevant issue to discuss, this post is not about that. It’s about living today through the eyes of God rather than our own. Now don’t go sideways on me – I’m not saying we’re like God. I’m saying we need to see our brothers and sisters as God sees them – which is not an easy thing for us to do because He is God and we’re not. But we clearly know how he wants us to see them – with love, understanding, and forgiveness.
Let’s look again at today’s Bible verse… I don’t know about you, but there’s a lot of me in that list of adjectives.
So what are we to do about it?
The Tiny Words. Big Life. takeaway is this: Becoming holy or pure can only be achieved by absorbing God’s word on a daily basis and praying to be delivered from an attitude that places you (and me) above others.
In other words, read the Bible and pray – a lot. Everyday. Consistently… Doing anything less can cause us to drift away from God, inward toward ourselves, which makes us an easy target for The Evil One, who as we know, is prowling like a lion looking for someone to devour.
So, be careful about “doing your own thing”. Instead, if you truly care about yourself and what happens to you during the last days – “do God’s thing”.
2 Timothy 3:1-5
1 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.