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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 my strongest temptations for
self-pity
was a few years ago 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. 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.
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.
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