I am currently leading a group of ladies in a study on consecration, using Havergal’s Kept for the Master’s Use (a verse by verse discussion of her hymn, “Take My Life and Let It Be”). The chapter we are now perusing has to do with the line, “Take my will and make it thine—it shall be no longer mine.” That, in essence, is the theme of this book. Though the idea of self denial is not one that has women alone in the Scripture’s crosshairs, Kathie Reimer and her daughter, Lisa Whittle, discuss from a feminine viewpoint seven seeming paradoxes in the Word of God:

• Have a single focus, yet multi-task
• Be tolerant toward some things, yet intolerant toward others
• Fail, and simultaneously succeed
• Proceed, while also waiting
• Hold on and, in turn, let go
• Lead, and still follow
• Die, and consequently, live more abundantly

An apt sub-title for this book would be, What It Looks Like for Christian Women to Deny Self.

With appreciation to A Puritan’s Mind and the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Jonathan Edwards was born in the American Colonies in 1703 and raised in the Puritan and Congregationalist tradition.

Reprinted with permission from Dan Miller’s book Spiritual Reflections. The text appears here verbatim.

A forgotten country cemetery sits atop a windswept hill not far down the gravel road from where my parents used to live. While living at home, my attention was always drawn in the opposite direction of that cemetery.

In the other direction was “town.” School, friends, athletic events, parades, concerts, restaurants, church—everything exciting was in that direction. But as the years passed and occasion afforded a brief visit home, my interests were strangely drawn toward that quiet graveyard. On occasion I would walk there and stroll among the tombstones.

Bordered by a shallow creek and cow pasture, nestled among a few gnarly trees, this little cemetery is one lonely place. I never saw another person there. There is no marquee, driveway or parking lot. No flowers, shrubs, benches, sidewalks or manicured lawn. Nor are there any impressive monuments—just simple, weathered tombstones rising in obscurity from the prairie grass. Some of the stones, as if too weary to stand any longer in their struggle against time, have been toppled over and rest on top of the graves they mark.

Note: Reading Part 1 and Part 2 of this series is recommended before reading Part 3.

Background

In the introductory article to this series, I suggested that Christ’s confrontations with the Pharisees are a great source for determining whether

Note: Reading Part 1 of this series is recommended before reading Part 2.

Background

In the introductory article to this series, I suggested that Christ’s confrontations with the Pharisees are a valid source for determining whether or not we are practicing legalism.

Introduction

Last May, discussion here at SI about Heritage Christian School in Findlay, OH and the senior who chose a public high school prom over his own graduation ceremony revealed a rift on the issue of legalism. The majority were certainly comfortable with the rule against students attending a high school prom. But some thought such rules were legalistic.

Read Part 1.

Groupthink and Collective Self-Deception

In George Orwell’s classic novel, 1984, Winston Smith lives in a world completely controlled by the government, personified by the moniker, “Big Brother.” Everyone is conditioned to believe exactly what Big Brother says is true.

Self-Deception and the Christian Life

Have you deceived yourself? How would you know if you had? And once self-deceived, how would you correct the problem? Gregg Ten Elshof’s new book, I Told Me So: Self Deception and the Christian Life (Eerdmans, 2009), is a small but powerful book exposing the dynamics of self-deception. The very concept of self-deception implies some level of knowledge of the truth, otherwise it would simply be ignorance. Self-deception, then, is in some way a knowing or intentional lying to oneself. And we are all in danger of deceiving ourselves, both individually and when in a group. An examination of this phenomenon should make us wiser to its ways.

Individual self-deception

Jean-Paul Sartre characterized self-deception as the avoidance of rational standards of evidence whenever it suits our purposes. Ten Elshof explains that in self-deception, “I am both the deceived and the deceiver. I am deceiving myself if I’m managing my beliefs with no regard for the truth. I’m trying to manage my beliefs, but I’m not trying to move myself along toward true belief” (p. 25). We’ve all seen this in action. A mother doesn’t want to believe that her son is addicted to drugs, even though there is plenty of evidence available, and the conclusion is obvious to others. A pastor considers himself to be a loving husband and good father, even when his wife voices her feelings of loneliness, and his children leave home and church never to return as soon as they graduate from high school. The key here is that truth is replaced with feeling good, diminishing guilt, or some other adopted strategy that parades as a pursuit of truth, but is in fact not so.

How does self-deception happen? Dallas Willard suggests this occurs when an individual or group “refuses to acknowledge factors in their life of which they are dimly conscious, or even know to be the case, but are unprepared to deal with: to openly admit and take steps to change.” The result is “that what they say they believe, intend, and want is not borne out in life” (p. x). Part of self-deception, then, is the ignoring of avenues of truth, whether it is the counsel of others or evidence that one does not want to face.