Some people won’t read this simply because of the title. Others will read it just for that reason. My hope is that we read this not for the title but for what’s inside.
I have to be totally honest. I’m a pastor. I’ve been one for nearly 21 years. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. But a little known secret that most every follower of Jesus tries to hide…I sometimes struggle with my faith.
Now let me be totally transparent. I’m not saying that I doubt who Jesus was or what he did or any of that. I do believe all of that and am truly grateful for all of the people who have poured into me to get me to where I am today. The issue is that I struggle with my personal understanding of and need for faith.
Let me put it a different way. The biggest obstacle to a life of faith is pride. It’s easy to put the wrong mindset on and go through life thinking we don’t need God or we didn’t do anything wrong in that area. It’s all too tempting to kind of sideline our faith because our lives are really going well.
If you look around and honestly reflect on your life, you probably have moments when things were just cruising on autopilot. Your marriage was fine. Bills were being paid. Kids aren’t in jail. No major illness in your family. Haven’t lost anyone in recent years. Your vacations are wonderful until they end. All the things in life just click along.
It’s in these moments that we don’t really feel the need for God. It’s all too easy in these days when our cup is overflowing to look past our God to all of the things that we have amassed for ourselves. This, not sin, is the greatest obstacle to our faith.
Yes sin, all of it, is wrong and needs to be repented. That’s not what I said. So quit hearing what you want to hear and hear what I actually said. Sin isn’t the greatest obstacle we face when it comes to faith.
The greatest obstacle to saving faith in Jesus is our pride. When we seem to have everything we think we need, then we don’t need Jesus. That’s pride. That’s the greatest obstacle to faith.
What’s worse than this? I’m glad you asked! It’s often in these moments of self righteous pride that we hold our magnifying glass over the apparent failures of others. In our pride we try to magnify someone else’s struggle to make ourselves even bigger. And that’s the pride slide.
No where in the Bible is pride a good thing. Nowhere in the Bible is focusing on my accomplishments over Christ’s sufficiency acceptable. Nowhere is it remotely approved of to highlight someone else’s sins while keep our closet locked securely so that no one, even ourselves, can see what’s inside.
If the church, Christians, pastors want to find a way to reach the people around them, we better start by dealing with our own selfish pride. When we get that part right, the rest will start to make a lot more sense. We can’t love one another if we think we’re better than everyone else. We can’t live God’s story if we think we’re God’s gift to the world.
Remove the obstacle of pride with repentance. Honest admission of where we’ve wronged others followed by changing your lifestyle is what fixes this pride slide. True you can’t change how others see you. Some people will just hold onto the one thing you said or the one thing you did. That’s not what this is about. This is about you.
You, nope not her or him but you! You take time to deal with your pride and you’ll see how much it has hindered your faith. When pride is gone, you’ll see just how effective sharing the gospel story can be because it will line up with life.