What is your besetting sin? Let’s peal it back

Anger (dba, impatience and frustration):

I get angry because………….People are not doing what I want, when I want and how I want it done. They are not performing to my expectations, needs and demands. I have set the standard, and in my eyes it is a reasonable standard, and you need to meet that level and velocity of work.

 

Comfort:

I want peace and quiet, I don’t want arguments, to be bothered with contributing to the home. As the leader of this house, I should come home and everything be taken care of. As the wife, I have labored with the kids all day and when you get home I expect, no, demand help. As a single, I want to come home and expect the phone not to ring – for just 30 FREAKING MINUTES! I expect something that I believe is completely reasonable. I demand something that is good and godly to demand. I want something so much that I will sin if I don’t get it.

 

Envy

You have something I want. I deserve it. I worked harder for that raise or promotion, I deserve a new kitchen or remodeled bathroom because…[whatever]. I want something that God has given to someone else and I believe that He made a mistake in not giving it to me.

Bitterness

That should never have happened. They should never have gotten away with it. God was not just in the punishment that they ultimately got. I have determined that it was not enough and that even death and hell is not sufficient for what you did to me. God was wrong, He was too merciful to you and I reserve the right to continue to hold this offense against you, against me, or against God.

Recent: the George Zimmerman // Trayvon Martin decision. Everyone knows the right answer, and that they have a better decision than the 6 jurors who were sitting in the court room and heard the evidence.

 

Fear of Man

Pride is a self-focused world view. Humility is a God-centered life. If I am self-focused, I need others to affirm and confirm my merit, my importance, my value. Therefore it is not an over active humbleness that feeds a fear of man but an over-active self-focus.

 

C. S. Lewis, said that humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.

 

Ungratefulness

Gratefulness comes from being thankful to someone for something. If we are not thinking about God and what he has done, we will not cultivate gratefulness. Our self-centered nature does not take the time to meditate on what a great need we have and what a great gift we have been given and what a great God gave it. Then if we don’t do that with God, how will we ever be grateful then for the smaller gifts that others have given us.

 

Lust

Lust is a complex confluence of desires - comfort, self-control, envy, but the axel holding these together is pride. I want more than God has given me, I am not satisfied with what God has given me, and I want to be wanted by others. Each of those makes a statement that we know things better than God.