self pity
Nothing about myself disgusts me more than my times of self-pity. Self-pity is the strongest evidence of a mind completely misdirected. God never intended our minds to be on ourselves. We are not even to examine ourselves, much less feel pity for ourselves.
One of the strongest temptations for self-pity was a back in 1994 when I was arrested. I was shocked as plain-clothed officers suddenly surrounded me, handcuffed me and carted me off to jail. As a matter of fact, I was in three different jails over a one-week period. I was facing a maximum of two 99-year sentences for something I did not even do. I had no money and really no defense. Needless to say, I was feeling very threatened.
Even though the District Attorney would later tell the judge to throw the case out of the court, which she did immediately, it was to be a ten-week ordeal full of mystery and uncertainty before I would know the out come.
I remember how I felt. Alone in my cell, I had no idea what was going on. As I lay on a thin pad on top of a cement slab: I wept, I prayed, I had a growing sense of self-pity. I couldn't sleep amidst all the cries and screams coming from the other cells. It was so weird, unlike anything I had ever experienced. It felt like a nightmare. It seemed so unreal, but having to keep knocking the roaches off my arm as I lay there made me aware of how real it was. It was no dream!
The doctor that examined me before I was put in the first cell panicked when she took my blood pressure. She insisted that the officer put me in a cell near her station so she could fetch me to her office and check on me through the night. She was especially concerned when she learned that I had had a heart attack a few years before from my motorcycle accident.
It was at this time that I had the second worse case of self-pity in my life. The worse case of self-pity was in the third jail. I was told that a very generous benefactor was providing $100,000 cash for my bail. Thinking that when they called me from the cellblock they were going to release me, it was a most crushing realization that before the money arrived, I was being transferred to another city and another jail instead.
In the third jail I was so upset and disappointed. I was thrown into a cell they called "the tank" along with about fifteen other guys. The cell was quite small and everyone was lying all over the floor with hardly any space to walk. I had positioned myself on a small bench in the corner.
For twelve hours I sat in the corner sulking. My back hurt. The bench was so high my feet didn't touch the floor and it was extremely uncomfortable. Even though in the previous jail I was a witness through counsel to many inmates, but until the Lord adjusted my perception, in this jail I just sulked in self-pity.
It was as if the Lord said to me, "Where is the crown of thorns? I don't see any blood. Where are the nails? I don't see a cross. Where are the jeering and mocking? I don't see you in that much discomfort. When did they scourge you? Are you really suffering as much as you think?" With that my attitude finally changed and I focused my mind on the One this was all about. After that, He allowed me to witness to the entire group of men in that cell for over two hours answering questions and sharing Christ. Sometimes the cell was so quiet you could hear them breathing. Other times the cell would explode with laughter.
When I allowed myself to be filled with self-pity, I was worthless to the Lord. I was paralyzed with my eyes on ME. Until I set my mind on HIM, nothing was going to happen in the power of the Spirit of Christ within me. As long as I was going to "mind the things of the flesh" there would be no witness of Him through me to these men. I was the only Christian in the cell.
Once I set my mind on "things above" a sweet door of utterance was given me even to the biggest, meanest, drug dealer in that cell. The Lord, in His mercy, allowed me to "redeem the time." If fact, when my lawyer finally arrived and had them call my name to go into a conference room, stepping over the bodies of the men between me and the cell door, each one would say, "God bless you." By the time I had reached the cell door, tears were streaming down my face. I turned and raised my hand to heaven and said, "And the Lord bless you and reveal Himself to you." With that, the cell echoed with, "Don't forget to pray for us." Arms were waving through the bars as the officer led me away for my release on bail and one after another I heard them crying out, "Pray for me!"
At least three different times Jesus' anger and fury was kindled against things He utterly despised. The cleansing of the Temple, His verbal attack of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, and the time Peter told Him to have self-pity.
Satan tempted Jesus to have self-pity at least twice. "And when he (Jesus) had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." Jesus refused to ever practice self-pity. Self-pity will never be justified in us either.
Yes, Jesus resisted the call to self-pity with great force. Jesus rebuked Peter harshly. "He turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." Can you imagine hearing Jesus attributing your words to Satan? Imagine hearing Jesus say that you are "an offence unto me."
Why did Jesus give this severe reprimand to Peter? Doesn't it seem too harsh? When you see what the margin of the King James Version reveals about what Peter said, you will see that such a severe response from Jesus shows His utter contempt for SELF-PITY.
Here is the text: "From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. {Be it far from thee = in the Greek: Pity thyself}" Peter was calling on Jesus to pity Himself and Jesus would not only have nothing to do with such thoughts, but resisted with a harsh reprimand. Being every bit man, Jesus would not allow the slightest thought of self-pity to enter His mind.
Another powerful demonstration of Jesus' refusal of self-pity was at the time they made Simon carry the cross for Jesus. (By the way, this powerful demonstration of Jesus not being a weak "victim" is not portrayed in the "Passion" movie) "And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus. And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children." Jesus did not want them to think that pity for Him was to be any credit to them. Without Him as their Savior, they and their children would be forever separated from God. Jesus would have none of their pity and He put things into a proper perspective for these women and for us.
Jesus was born for this purpose. No amount of weeping and carrying on was going to deter Him from His determined goal. Our way to resist the powerful temptation to self-pity is exactly what I finally did in that cell with all those men: The setting of my mind was by "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame." Looking away from ourselves unto Jesus will bring us to a place we can say with Paul, "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."
With this attitude we will be most like Jesus. Obey the Scripture that tells us, "Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did." "To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps."
"Dear children, keep yourselves from idols," especially the subtle idol of SELF-PITY.
In Christ's Grip,
John J. McCall
One of the strongest temptations for self-pity was a back in 1994 when I was arrested. I was shocked as plain-clothed officers suddenly surrounded me, handcuffed me and carted me off to jail. As a matter of fact, I was in three different jails over a one-week period. I was facing a maximum of two 99-year sentences for something I did not even do. I had no money and really no defense. Needless to say, I was feeling very threatened.
Even though the District Attorney would later tell the judge to throw the case out of the court, which she did immediately, it was to be a ten-week ordeal full of mystery and uncertainty before I would know the out come.
I remember how I felt. Alone in my cell, I had no idea what was going on. As I lay on a thin pad on top of a cement slab: I wept, I prayed, I had a growing sense of self-pity. I couldn't sleep amidst all the cries and screams coming from the other cells. It was so weird, unlike anything I had ever experienced. It felt like a nightmare. It seemed so unreal, but having to keep knocking the roaches off my arm as I lay there made me aware of how real it was. It was no dream!
The doctor that examined me before I was put in the first cell panicked when she took my blood pressure. She insisted that the officer put me in a cell near her station so she could fetch me to her office and check on me through the night. She was especially concerned when she learned that I had had a heart attack a few years before from my motorcycle accident.
It was at this time that I had the second worse case of self-pity in my life. The worse case of self-pity was in the third jail. I was told that a very generous benefactor was providing $100,000 cash for my bail. Thinking that when they called me from the cellblock they were going to release me, it was a most crushing realization that before the money arrived, I was being transferred to another city and another jail instead.
In the third jail I was so upset and disappointed. I was thrown into a cell they called "the tank" along with about fifteen other guys. The cell was quite small and everyone was lying all over the floor with hardly any space to walk. I had positioned myself on a small bench in the corner.
For twelve hours I sat in the corner sulking. My back hurt. The bench was so high my feet didn't touch the floor and it was extremely uncomfortable. Even though in the previous jail I was a witness through counsel to many inmates, but until the Lord adjusted my perception, in this jail I just sulked in self-pity.
It was as if the Lord said to me, "Where is the crown of thorns? I don't see any blood. Where are the nails? I don't see a cross. Where are the jeering and mocking? I don't see you in that much discomfort. When did they scourge you? Are you really suffering as much as you think?" With that my attitude finally changed and I focused my mind on the One this was all about. After that, He allowed me to witness to the entire group of men in that cell for over two hours answering questions and sharing Christ. Sometimes the cell was so quiet you could hear them breathing. Other times the cell would explode with laughter.
When I allowed myself to be filled with self-pity, I was worthless to the Lord. I was paralyzed with my eyes on ME. Until I set my mind on HIM, nothing was going to happen in the power of the Spirit of Christ within me. As long as I was going to "mind the things of the flesh" there would be no witness of Him through me to these men. I was the only Christian in the cell.
Once I set my mind on "things above" a sweet door of utterance was given me even to the biggest, meanest, drug dealer in that cell. The Lord, in His mercy, allowed me to "redeem the time." If fact, when my lawyer finally arrived and had them call my name to go into a conference room, stepping over the bodies of the men between me and the cell door, each one would say, "God bless you." By the time I had reached the cell door, tears were streaming down my face. I turned and raised my hand to heaven and said, "And the Lord bless you and reveal Himself to you." With that, the cell echoed with, "Don't forget to pray for us." Arms were waving through the bars as the officer led me away for my release on bail and one after another I heard them crying out, "Pray for me!"
At least three different times Jesus' anger and fury was kindled against things He utterly despised. The cleansing of the Temple, His verbal attack of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, and the time Peter told Him to have self-pity.
Satan tempted Jesus to have self-pity at least twice. "And when he (Jesus) had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." Jesus refused to ever practice self-pity. Self-pity will never be justified in us either.
Yes, Jesus resisted the call to self-pity with great force. Jesus rebuked Peter harshly. "He turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." Can you imagine hearing Jesus attributing your words to Satan? Imagine hearing Jesus say that you are "an offence unto me."
Why did Jesus give this severe reprimand to Peter? Doesn't it seem too harsh? When you see what the margin of the King James Version reveals about what Peter said, you will see that such a severe response from Jesus shows His utter contempt for SELF-PITY.
Here is the text: "From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. {Be it far from thee = in the Greek: Pity thyself}" Peter was calling on Jesus to pity Himself and Jesus would not only have nothing to do with such thoughts, but resisted with a harsh reprimand. Being every bit man, Jesus would not allow the slightest thought of self-pity to enter His mind.
Another powerful demonstration of Jesus' refusal of self-pity was at the time they made Simon carry the cross for Jesus. (By the way, this powerful demonstration of Jesus not being a weak "victim" is not portrayed in the "Passion" movie) "And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyrenian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus. And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him. But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children." Jesus did not want them to think that pity for Him was to be any credit to them. Without Him as their Savior, they and their children would be forever separated from God. Jesus would have none of their pity and He put things into a proper perspective for these women and for us.
Jesus was born for this purpose. No amount of weeping and carrying on was going to deter Him from His determined goal. Our way to resist the powerful temptation to self-pity is exactly what I finally did in that cell with all those men: The setting of my mind was by "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame." Looking away from ourselves unto Jesus will bring us to a place we can say with Paul, "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."
With this attitude we will be most like Jesus. Obey the Scripture that tells us, "Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did." "To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps."
"Dear children, keep yourselves from idols," especially the subtle idol of SELF-PITY.
In Christ's Grip,
John J. McCall
posted by Alicia Beth @ 1:33 PM
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