I don’t like to lose. I don’t like to lose at Scrabble, I don’t like to lose at chess (that’s why I never play my husband). I don’t even like to lose when I’m playing Jeopardy, and that’s a silly TV game show. I do not like even watching the Los Angeles Dodgers if they’re having a rotten season.
It carries over into my work, too. I don’t like to be late for a deadline on an article or a due date on a manuscript and I do not like to leave telephone messages unreturned or correspondence unanswered.
Losing, for me, is not easy. I’ve got these expectations I place on myself, even in the area of personal sin. I do not like to lose when it comes to my struggle against sin. I get so demoralized when I fall into a bad habit. I get disheartened when I can’t seem to grab my thoughts back in line. I get discouraged when I let rip a bunch of angry words against my husband.
Are you like that? Do you set expectations for yourself and then get irritated when you fail and fall into sin? When you lose with the Lord?
People like you and me get into trouble with this. Why? Because our attitude towards sin is more self-centered than God-centered. We’re obsessed with meeting our own standards and the focus is more on us and our expectations of ourselves rather than on just pleasing the Lord.
Jerry Bridges says this in his book, The Pursuit of Holiness: “We are more concerned about our own victory over sin than we are about the fact that our sins grieve the heart of God. We cannot tolerate failure because we are success oriented, not because we know our sin is offensive to a Holy Lord.”
And then he says this, “God wants us to walk in obedience, and victory is only a by-product of that obedience.” Obedience is oriented toward God; and unless we watch it, victory can be oriented on ourselves.
Now, I’m not splitting hairs here. There is a subtle, self-centered attitude at the root of many of our difficulties in overcoming sinful habits. Little wonder we can’t seem to shake those bad habits... little wonder we keep repeating the same sins. It’s because we’re too centered on ourselves, too focused on failing our own personal expectations. Until we face up to this, we will not... we will simply not be able to consistently walk in obedience.
What about you? Do you hate to lose? Well, watch it— it could be a little too much of a focus on the old self. Let’s not be so fearful of failure that we forget to be fearful of a Holy God who grieves over our sin. Let’s not be in it to please ourselves with our performance, let’s please Jesus. Just focus on Him and you and I can never, never lose.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 93176
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