We have often heard the joke, “I never make mistakes. I thought I did but I was wrong.” In our arrogance, we often do not recognize the stupidity in which we are engaged. It leads to all kinds of additional stupidity. We pile mistakes upon mistakes and think we are in the right. The irony of arrogance is when Paul says, “Do not be proud… do not be conceited” there is no thought that I need to apply that to myself because “I am not proud, I am not conceited”—while everyone around says “HA!”
We were challenged Sunday to stop being arrogant in our Christianity. It really slapped me across my face. In our movement to the center of God’s kingdom, as we grow closer to God… well, let me say it this way, we won’t move to the center if we aren’t loving and caring for those outside the circle. We can’t just hang out with those inside the circle, we have been “sent into the world””, not to become like the world, for we “are not of the world” but that the world might see Christ and be transformed by him, just as we are being transformed. Now, we are also warned not be arrogant thinking we can just run around the world and not be affected by it, we have to be on guard, but we can know that we will be protected if we but humble ourselves before God and others and fulfill our calling.
