"We Love to Be Right"

“The great paradox of the kingdom concerns the weak, strong, right, and wrong. The paradox is this: Those who are strong and right are weak and wrong. And those who are weak and wrong are right and strong. What does this mean? There are two great drives in our hearts: the one to be strong, the other to be right. . . .

“Every day, as soon as we wake up, our hearts are seeking new ways to be justified. We long to think better of ourselves, and we long for others to think well of us. We work hard to keep our reputation and are quick to put someone down in order to improve our reputation. As the writer of Ecclesiastes says, ‘I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man’s envy of his neighbor’ (Ecc 4:4.) We work hard to be better and look better than everyone else.

Nevertheless, as we place ourselves in the position of strength and ‘rightness,’ we are actually distancing ourselves from grace and from the Spirit’s power in our lives – for Jesus tells us that his power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). By taking the position of being right and strong, we also distance ourselves from other people, especially those close to us. . . .

If you base your life on who Christ is and what he has done for you, you will go and actively lover other people. If you base your life on what you are doing and how well you are doing it, you will fail to love others (since you will be focused on yourself). One approach is living out of the gospel; the other is living out of the ‘bad news’ of your own making.”

(Sonship, World Harvest Mission, p. 54)