wrong

my husband tells me i'm terrible at admitting i'm wrong.

he's right.

i hate it. i hate being wrong. and if i think i might be wrong, i hate saying the words. and when i think of the words 'i was wrong' in my head and try to say them out loud, it's like waging a war to force the words past my lips. and sometimes they never do make it out.

tonight i listened to a sermon (by Stuart Briscoe) about the first church - those who experienced the effects of Pentecost, who heard the message of Jesus and believed, repented, and joined the body of Christ. i'd never really thought into it before, but some of those people listening to Peter's message that day may have been the same people who were in the crowds days earlier yelling, 'Crucify Him!!!' about Jesus. now they were watching a little group of local men speak in languages they'd never heard before, and those listeners reconsidered their position against Jesus... they contemplated how they'd sentenced the Messiah of the world, Jesus, to death and they said, 'What have we done?!'

then they made the most important choice of their lives. they admitted they were wrong. they repented and became followers of Jesus.

that's courage.

i wonder if i would have done that.

~

over and over in the Bible God affirms that He listens to repentance. and He honors it. if you're truly repentant, admitting you're wrong and turning from it, He won't leave you hanging.

David, committer of one of the most famous Bible sins (killing a man so he could commit adultery with the guy's wife), wrote this in the Psalms. he knew it from experience:
"...a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise." Psalm 51:17b

when Jonah finally brought God's message to the evil people of Nineveh, and they repented, the Bible says this:
"When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, He had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction He had threatened." Jonah 3:10

King Solomon, a man who was given wisdom but struggled to act wisely, said this:
"He who conceals his sins does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy." Proverbs 28:13

Saul (later Paul), a religious leader who made it his personal mission to seek out and kill ALL Christians (Acts 8:3), accepted Jesus as his King, even though it would cost him his job, his friends, his status, eventually his freedom, and possibly even his life. but he went on to write most of what we now call the New Testament.

key message of the whole Bible is this:
"Repent then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out." Acts 3:19a

~

why do i have such a hard time admitting i'm wrong?
pride. ego. sometimes i'm afraid that if i admit i'm wrong in one area, the person i'm talking to might think i'm wrong all over the place.

pride. basically it's me saying, 'i know everything and i am king of everything. you all answer to me! how dare you think you know more than me!'

but wait. who is Lord? me or Jesus? if i claim to be a Christian, then Jesus is Lord. and that means only He is always right. that means i am sometimes, if not most of the time, wrong. even if it's just a matter of my motives being wrong, that is still wrong-ness.

and that means i'd better get used to admitting i'm wrong. really, i should practice it in the 'small' areas, like when i'm talking to my husband about who put the peanut butter back on the wrong shelf. then when it comes to the 'big' stuff, like admitting to God that i failed the other day and listened to gossip, i won't be so out of practice.

try it yourself.

think about your actions and words and thoughts today. if something comes up where you notice you are wrong, admit it to that person (or to God) and tell them, 'i'm sorry. i was wrong.' and if it applies, add another most annoying sentence: 'you were right.'
ps if you're married: men really like to hear that last sentence. it's a really big confidence booster that will help them love you just a little bit more than they did yesterday. :)


"If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:7-9

what does the world think of you?

• women wear make-up everyday. they are notorious for spending hours in the morning 'painting on their face' and doing their hair, coloring their nails and trying on outfits to get ready for the day.
• every t.v. show is splatted with advertisements displaying how good we will look or how superior you will feel or how accepted you will be if only you would buy their product.
• one disparaging sentence can crush your whole day... you'll think about the insult all day, whether it was meant or not, whether that friend or acquaintance or even stranger is upset at you or dislikes you.
• men can stand in front of the mirror day after day, inspecting their muscles, wondering how to get more strength, planning how they'll gain more definition, posing and flexing.
• over the centuries, our human minds continue to invent new vocabulary for insults and compliments, based solely on popularity: cool, hot, dorky, out, so-last-week, in...
• magazine after magazine and t.v. show after t.v. show and website after website are dedicated to following celebrities, those few humans who have 'made it' to where we all want to be.

what do all these things have in common? 

they illustrate how much we humans desire to be LIKED. from the time we are little kids on the playground, to the time we are elderly and in the nursing home, we desire the approval of others.

take a moment right now to consider: what does the world think of you? if your life story and your photo suddenly were highlighted on he news, what would the world's impression of you be? what is the main feeling the world would have about you?

this is what Jesus told His little group of followers the night before He died:

"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you." John 15:18-19

hate. 

was that the word that came to your mind just now when i asked how the world would feel about you?

not that we should be inventing ways to repulse the world. we should hope that people become attracted to something about how different we are. but if we are truly living our life modeled after Jesus, the world will turn its back on us and hate us.

'well then,' you might think, 'that must mean real Christians are annoying or prejudiced or snobby or SOMETHING! there must be a good reason the world hates Christians.'

but no. 

Jesus said, "They hated me without reason." John 15:25

and when you think of Jesus, whether you're a Christian or not, do you really think it made any sense that the people of His day hunted Him down in the middle of the night while He was praying, during their own religious festival, and then killed Him using a method reserved for the most evil of criminals?

are you willing to follow Jesus in the big and small parts of life, even if it means the world will hate you? 

~as a girl, will you wear clothes that aren't tight and don't show cleavage nor lots of leg, even if you don't look like your friends and don't catch the eye of that 'cute' guy? 

~as a mother, will you choose to follow through with your threat to discipline, even if your kid seems eternally angry at you?

~as a man, will you change the channel or look conspicuously away from the t.v. during that sexy scene, even if your buddies look at you funny? 

~as a pastor, will you choose to speak the whole truth, even if it means losing a few members?

~as a student, will you stand up for the girl everyone calls a geek, even though you'll never be accepted by the cool kids?

what is the worst that can happen in these situations? people look at you funny, they may even pick a fight with you, and you may lose some friends. if the world keeps on its course, we may soon be thrown in jail for these decisions, and maybe even killed. (already happening in other countries.)

but again, i ask: what is the worst that can happen to you if you are living your life with Christ as your Lord? regardless of the worst the world can throw at you, if you believe in Jesus as your Lord, your story will always end with you rising from the dead and living with Jesus forever in His spectacular and unimaginably awesome home called Heaven.

and you will see God. Revelation 22:4

and you will reign with Jesus. 2 Timothy 2:12

and you will understand things you never understood in life. 1 Corinthians 13:12

and you will be made new, a perfection you could only dream of here on earth. Revelation 21:4-5

meanwhile, if you choose to please the world and choose its affection over God's, the Last Day will come and Jesus will say, "Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." Matthew 25:41 

and you will enter your eternal existence in Hell, forever separated from God.

what's your ending? it starts with how you choose to live now.

"I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

"I tell you, whoever acknowledges Me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God. But he who disowns Me before men will be disowned before the angels of God." 

-Jesus (Luke 12:4-5, 8-9)