Proud v. Broken

[saribear]

I was recently reminded of this list, and thought I would share it with you all... it's an extrapolation of Psalm 51:15-17, trying to identify what exactly a broken spirit, desired by the God of the Universe, looks like.

O Lord, open my lips, That my mouth may declare Your praise. For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

My hope for Ethnos is that we become this sacrifice together. First, that we would be this to each other, as a part of a committed body, and second that we, collectively, would be this for our larger community.

Proud People : Broken People

Focus on the failures of others : Overwhelmed with a sense of their own spiritual need

Look down on others : Esteem all others as better than self

Independent/self-sufficient spirit : Dependent spirit/recognize need for others

Maintain control: must be my way : Surrender Control

Have to prove that they are right : Willing to yield the right to be right

Claim rights : Yield rights

Demanding spirit : Giving spirit

Self-protective of time, rights, reputation : Self-denying

Desire to be served : Motivated to serve others

Desire to be a success : Desire to be faithful to make others a success

Desire to be recognized/appreciated : Sense of unworthiness; thrilled to be used at all; eager for others to get credit

Think of what they can do for God : Know that they have nothing to offer God

Feel confident in how much they know : Humbled by how much they have to learn

Self-conscious : Not concerned with self at all

Keep people at arms’ length : Risk getting close to others/willing to take risks of loving intimately

Quick to blame others : Accept personal responsibility-can see where they were wrong

Unapproachable : "Easy to be entreated"

Defensive when criticized : Receive criticism with a humble, open heart

Concerned with being "respectable’ : Concerned with being real

Concerned about what others think : All that matters is what God knows

Find it difficult to share their spiritual needs with others : Willing to be open/transparent with others

Have a hard time saying, ‘I was wrong—please forgive me" : Are quick to admit failure and to seek forgiveness

When confessing sin, deal in generalities : Deal in specifics

Remorseful over their sin—got caught/found out : Repentant over sin (forsake it)

Compare themselves with others and feel deserving of honor :Compare themselves to the holiness of God and feel desperate need for mercy

Blind to their true heart condition : Walk in the light

Don’t think they have anything to repent of : Continual heart attitude of repentance

[David]

Wow, this is a great list! One that I will be using for sure.

[phil]

Thanks, Sarah. Good stuff.

[phil]

Oops, my computer does funny things sometimes...

proud people vs broken people.pdf

(62.92 KiB) Downloaded 5 times

[David]

could your computer throw an Ethnos logo on the top of that?

I think I'd like to print them out and share them on Sunday.

[saribear]

Would probably be good to mention that I did not come up with the list... so it may be someone's material. As long as we put something like source unknown, we should be good...

[phil]

When I asked my computer about the matter, he said all that stuff is in the original attachment, and someone didn't look close enough. Sorry, he's kind of rude. He apparently didn't consider the stuff on the sheet. Probably concepts he's not programmed to contemplate.

[saribear]

Haha... awesome. :)

[Wes Smith]

My computer talked to some Google servers and found that the author of the list is Nancy Leigh DeMoss and you can use it if you credit the source.

[phil]

My computer went back in time and posted this new information into the original file. For some reason, events still played out as they did originally, and people still made comments after the file posting relating to missing this information. My computer was unable to process this paradox and wiped its short term memory by powering down.

[Luke of Hazard]

Alright, now I'm wrestling with reconciling (not the senate procedure) this topic with this one: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2529

We are saints, and we are broken. It is an interesting juxtaposition. One of the places that I get tripped up I think is because my crazy brain keeps wanting to associate saint with proud. And sinner with broken. I think the latter makes more sense than the former. I think it is helpful to me to substitute broken in the times when I have thought of myself as sinner. It seems that this body feels that is appropriate. Perhaps a sinner vs. broken table would be helpful, because now I'm struggling to visualize clear differences between the two.

OK maybe not going back and looking at the table again, its pretty clear that broken does not mean sinner. One could probably go ahead and rename that table sinner vs. saint. Ginny struggled with the heading broken in that table, and felt that humble would have been more accurate, which is probably true. Broken is perhaps a good middle ground term that induces humility, its just interesting to me that it's OK to consider ourselves broken but not OK to consider ourselves sinners. Perhaps the distinction is more important than I realize. Is anybody else tracking this garbled circular logic?

[saribear]

I think it's important to remember that the word broken (shabar - broken, crushed, quenched) is the word used in Psalm 51:17.

To me, broken implies needing restoration. So, although we saints have been justified, we are still undergoing sancification to be made holy. If we start thinking of ourselves as not needing sanctification, then we move ourselves over to the proud column...

[David]

Well said, Sarah!

[Luke of Hazard]

Yes I did remember that the word broken comes from Psalm 51:17. Where then does the proud come from? I think there's some extrapolation that has been applied here, and I'm just trying to figure it out.

[David]

Proverbs 29:23 is one: One's pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor.