Kirk Cousins Washington Redskins Quarterback Yells 'You Like That,' to R... https://t.co/lKZiUnMYPM via @YouTube— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) August 31, 2018
It sounds
like a good time until we find ourselves caught up in seeking the attention and
becoming too craven to shy away from it.
How do we know this?
By looking
at our smartphones and acknowledging that we too, have become encapsulated by
our social media accounts. People participate in challenges on YouTube and Snap
to generate likes on Facebook and Instagram or more Twitter followers and
reposts on Pinterest; I’m not above the fray here or even in this blog as I
point out stuff that I have done and to an extent, am still doing. These posts
aren’t just because I have steam to blow off or due to becoming an authority of
some things as much as I genuinely enjoy the feedback and pats on the back for
roughly seven hundred words from my mind and keystrokes to the rest of the
world to read, parse, discuss, or dismiss.
This is akin
to looking for love in all the wrong places. You like that?!
Jesus teaches
us in Matthew 6 how to give Him praise – and it is not some superfluous prayer
that references the 42-generational lineage of Christ and gets the church
mothers swooning all over the front pews on Communion Sunday. In my own guilt
from sounding like I wanted to be seen during devotional and praise service as
opposed to giving an authentic conversation with the ensuing backslaps of a job
well done, it sometimes feels like I indeed have missed the mark with the overly
enunciated tongue thereby leading me to recognize that my own words in their
own symbolism are slanted toward the approval of man in contrast to the true
glorification of our Lord and Savior.
When you do
it wrong, you end up like Maximus from Gladiator. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?
How do I
kill that internal rallying cry?
Writer John
Piper had an idea, found in his book What
Jesus Demands from the World. Self-denial and fixation of the self are
essential, but O how easy it is to be made much of even my own self-denial! How
shall this insidious motive of pleasure in being made much of be broken except
through bending of my faculties to delight in the pleasures of making much of
God! Christian Hedonism is the only solution. It is deeper in death to self.
You must go deeper into the grave of the flesh to find the truly freeing stream
of miracle water that ravishes you with the taste of God’s glory. Only in that
speechless, all-satisfying admiration is the end of self. (What Jesus Demands,
136-137)
Only Jesus
is the true Living Water and in Him, we shall never thirst. Only by centering
ourselves into wanting Christ and the approval of God will our
self-flagellation for human approval will be broken. The Spirit helps us in our
weaknesses and enables us to do the impossible:
to say no to ungodliness and open our eyes to see the glory of God in
the face of Christ. In this concept, we can influence more souls via our
platform unlike by merely being a do-gooder.
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.— A. Cedric Armstrong (@cedteaches) August 31, 2018
Matthew 5:16 KJVhttps://t.co/sidt7qMa7g
It is only
when we renounce our selfish desires and exalt Christ that we truly become free
from condemnation (Romans 8:1), fully satisfied in Christ (Psalm 16:11) and
free to yell, You like that?! sans
consequence for the good of our neighbor and the glory of God.
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