Bootstraps

Obadiah 3-4

The Pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rock in your lofty dwelling, who say in your heart, “Who will bring me down to the ground?” Though you sour aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord.

As Jerusalem fell the people fled. In their flight, the people of Edom captured them and turned them over to the Babylonians. Once they were gone they then took advantage of the absence started living in the abandoned areas. God chose to speak out against their conduct on behalf of his people, that is what the book of Obadiah records. Yet, in it the Christian finds a warning as well.

A day doesn’t seem to pass when another pillar of Christianity does not fall or falter. It is only a fool who would say that such a thing “would never happen to me.” The longer the view of history the more a person will see that moral failure is always at the door. Sometimes it is at the door of a close friend and sometimes the door has your own name on it. As God warned Cain, “sin is crouching at the door.  Its desire if for you.” (Genesis 4:7) The people of Edom were finally able to see the Israelites brought low and rejoice over them in their humiliation.

The Christian is never to rejoice over the hardship and trials of others even when those trials and tribulations are well deserved. It is with humility that Christians understand that, but for the grace of God’s mighty hand, falling into sin (or diving as the case may be) is but a late night click away. This is why Christians cannot look on their own apparent righteousness as anything but what it is a gift of God’s divine grace. Christians are those recognize they cannot pay the price their sin deserves and they have no hope even if the bill was paid of being righteous going forward. Christians are those that are clothed in Christ Jesus’s righteousness. As such to glory in the failure of others is to forget were our righteousness comes from.

As Christians look more and more at the author and perfecter of their faith they will realize more and more that they are not the author of their faith neither are they perfecting it. This is why Christians can only glorify in God and his Christ. They have nothing to be proud of that was not given to them! God had to make the bootstraps and give the food for the energy to pull with! There are no self-made Christians.

CRUCE, DUM SPIRO, FIDO