This is Jeff Green’s story on how Jesus is changing him.
Have you ever had someone confront you about a part of your life that you have never thought about, or even considered? I am not talking about a sin you have been hiding but a sin hidden even from yourself. Whether you have or haven’t, you are probably thinking, “no thank you.”
Before Bailey and I became City Group Leaders at The Paradox Church we had a meeting with Pastor Ryan to assess us as potential leaders. I expected this to be a simple conversation in order to check some boxes, and now looking back, expected it to be a lot about our potential as leaders. I was wrong. The very first question was about my pride. “What pride?!” The specific example that was shown to me was how I don’t listen to people. I would ask someone a question and then ignore their response while formulating my own words. I thought so much of myself that I even thought I knew what you were going to say, so I didn’t need to listen. I had no argument for what I was shown – because I was shown the innermost parts of my heart.
To make a long story short, this began a season that I am still in of realizing how much I think of myself, of my abilities, of my accomplishments, etc., and how little I think of our Lord.
My first response to being shown my sin of not listening to others was to just shut up more often, you know, “Talk less, smile more.” In response to my pride, I began to try to make myself better. But the Lord continued to bring people into my life that would show me my sin. And slowly, the Spirit grew in me the ability to identify my thoughts and actions of when I was considering myself more than Him.
In Deuteronomy 8.11-14, Moses warns Israel,
Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God.
How often do I forget what the Lord has done and instead claim his works as my own and look around and worship myself and my accomplishments! But once again the Lord has not forgotten me. He has led me to learn to now think that my current status is not a result of my good works. I know and am continually reminded that if I were a result of my works I would only be a pile of rubbish.
The growth in my heart and life is not in a state of outward fruit, not yet. But now, less often than before do my thoughts revolve around me and when they do conviction comes quicker.
I can’t sit here and say that I was shown a sin and repented and walked away. Rather this has been a constant fight with my pride. But what I have learned is that seeing and realizing your pride is growth. Knowing and claiming a thought that goes through my head and being able to share with my wife or friends and proclaim that Jesus is the only one who is good, worthy, and righteous is the true growth.
My prayer for me and for all of us is this:
And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him (Deuteronomy 8.2-6).
So now I want to ask you this. Will you consider allowing the Lord to reveal himself to you by showing you the innermost parts of your heart? Will you ask someone who has been in your life what they have seen but have not spoken of? Don’t be scared, be hopeful. Be excited about how you will remember the Lord and walk in his ways.
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