We suffer from poor I Sight. Not eyesight, a matter of distorted vision that lenses can correct, but I sight. Poor I sight blurs your view not of the world but of yourself.
Some see self too hightly. Maybe it’s a PhD or predigree. A tattoo can do it, so can a new truck or the Noble Prize. Whatever the cause, the result is the same. I have so many gifts I can do anything.
Brazenly self assured and utterly self sufficient the I focused have long strutted beyoung the city limits of self confidence and entered the state of cockiness. You wonder who put the air in arrogance and the vain in vainglory? Those who can say I can do anything. Each one of us at some point in our lives have been in the state of cockiness. Some never leave it others get hurt and learn the hard way.
And all of us know the other extreme: I can’t do anything? Forget the thin air of cockiness, these folks breathe the thick, swampy air of self defeat. Cockaroaches have higher self esteem. These people get stuck in the I am no good. I can’t do anything. The world would be a better place without me.
Sometimes it is a terrible experience in life that cause these kinds of feeling. It could be the death of a loved one or a divorce that you did not think could happen. The promotion that someone else at work gets over you. Or the fact that the company goes outside to hire for a new position when you think you would be ideal for the job. So rather than object or cry foul they say see I told you I can’t do anything, I am worthless and no good.
If you are cocky or self depreciating you suffer from Poor I sight. You need a sight adjustment. You need to deal with the root of the problem.
We can’t do anything but we can do everything through Christ who strengthens me. The root of the problem is that we don’t want to admit that we can’t do something. I remember once saying that i had worked on radio’s when I first moved to the Carey’s and John Jr called me on it he handed me a radio that was broken and said fix it and I knew that I could never fix it but would not admit it. We can’t fix the lives that we have messed up. We can’t fix the relationships with our mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and wife or husband and the people at work but in Christ’s strength we can have the strength to do all that needs to be done. If that means suffering from the consequences of our actions for a year or a life time we can because Christ strengthens us. We are not omnipotent nor are we impotent, we are not God’s MVP we are not going to be at his right hand in the resurrections nor are we God’s mistake. We are not secure nor are we insecure. We are God secure a self worth based on our identify as Childern of God. We are in the middle. So how do we get there? Should we go for counseling? Maybe Therapy or read more self help books. Maybe a long walk in the forest with just the wind in the leaves. Nothing wrong with any of them but not what is needed in this situation. God Cure for poor I sight is Worship.
Showing up here on Sunday? Singing songs that sometimes you like and sometimes you hate or you feel that the music is not cutting edge enough or the preacher speaks too long and his voice drops at the end of sentences. You are just not into church will go with the wife to get her off your back. Worship is the only thing in the world that i know will deal with poor I sight. The prayers and the giving and the old ladies and the screaming kids and the grape juice and the breads. Why do I think that this will fix the i sight problem that we all have.
Because it get our eyes off ourselves and puts them on God who strengthens us and makes it possible to do all things in him. Worship gives God honor and offers him a standing ovation.
Worship is something that we can do on sunday in our songs and in our worship and it is something that we can do just before we leave the car to go to work or before we eat our lunch or as we sit on the part bench and watch the birds. We worship 24/7 showing up on Sunday ready to lift Jesus up. We don’t come to church to worship we come worshipping God.
When you come to get the god fix you have come in the wrong spirit. If you come having worhsipped the living God who loves you and you strengthens you. you got the right spirit. You know who you are and what you are and therefore you can stand in adoration before him. Chris Pearson and i were talking together as Jim Elder was coming to the end of his life. We were talking about the stuff that we thought we needed as young people and now what we really needed was God in our lives and how in the end we leave this world with nothing just as we entered it. The more that I worship God the more that I realize that there is nothing in this world that I really need. I don’t need a car and don’t need a motorcycle and don’t need a cottage and don’t need to go to China and don’t need to go to alaska but I do need God. I need his strenght more every day than I ever realized.
When we worship God we give him the honor and we lift our eyes off our selves and what we can or can’t do and we realize that he is amazing and loving and caring and is there when everyone else leaves us. At the end of life he is the only one who can go with us. God deserves a standing ovation. Why don’t you try just standing up and looking up and clap for him who is the lover of everything about you just as you are.
When we worship we are putting God on center stage and we are putting ourselves in the proper posture. We are looking on as God preforms one amazing event after another. We watch as he brings world leaders to their knees and as he opens the eyes of a child to a puppy in wonder. We watch him take the hand of the mentally handicapped and never leave their side. He reveals himself to those who often can’t see this world but have no trouble seeing God realm. When he is center stage we understand David prayer in Chronicles. We praise him because he is only one who is from everlasting to ever lasting. He is greatness and power and he is the full of majesty and splendor. David the king hiding from the king on the throne acting as a crimal begging for food and hoping to survive another day knows that everything in heavena and earth belong to him. If you are having a case of poor i sight you simply don’t understand this passage. Some of you think that you still have something to give God well you don’t. He doesn’t need anything from you. Some of us think that God owes us and he does not you can’t come demanding his favor and his love. God is God and I am an empty vessel in need of filling. the best thing that i can say comes next.
God wold die for your sins before he’d let you die in your sin. No matter what you have done he is here to die for you. To pay the pentaly for your sin to let you know that he loves you and will do anything to have a relationship with you. That is why I worship him. I worship him in awe and wonder becuase he wants to know me and does know me and still likes me. Not one of you in this room would like me if you knew what God knows about me. he died for all the ugliness that I am.
Clean House is the name for a new show on the Style Channel where experts in cleaning, organizing, remodeling, and painting sweep into a cluttered home with the purpose of leaving it more comfortable, attractive, and livable. The experts face the challenges of clothes strewn across the floor, bulging cabinets, closets filled from top to bottom, filled counter tops, and overflowing kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms, and living rooms—not a clean room in the house!
The experts’ first step is to take an inventory of all the "stuff." Then, decisions are made about what to sell at a yard sale and what to keep. The home’s inhabitants hesitate and hold on to favorite clothes from years gone by, childhood keepsakes, space-taking trivia, but then they yield. The sale is held, and money comes in to help with the makeover. Then the family leaves, and the work begins.
Rooms are cleaned out, redone for more efficiency and attractiveness, and repainted. Curtains are hung, cabinets set in, and walls decorated. A transformation takes place, and when the family returns, what a difference it makes! Any nervous anticipation quickly gives way to excitement and laughter when the family sees what’s taken place. "Thank you, thank you," the family says often amid smiles and tears.
In the spiritual realm, there comes a time for each of us to "take inventory" of what’s in our hearts, get rid of some things, and do some repairing and remodeling. And like the families on the show, we have an expert in remodeling and renovation—Jesus Christ—who can make our makeover an astounding success.
