Disproving Ourselves

The recent book UnChristian notes that most people outside of the church don't like to be around people from the church. They find them too judgmental and political among other things. Jerry Bridges a few years ago wrote Respectable Sins about those subtle, everyday sins we ignore in ourselves and others. Everyone does them and they're not 'anything' like the big sins of murder, abortion, homosexuality, theft, etc. The respectable sins are ones we don't worry about and feel the need to correct in ourselves. We invite Jesus into our hearts, like our homes, but we don't let him rearrange the furniture or adjust the thermoset; we stay in control.

In 2nd Corinthians' chapter 6, Paul states that we "prove ourselves by our purity, our understanding, our patience, our kindness, by the Holy Spirit within us." What are we proving? That we are followers of Jesus? Of course.

In statistics, you can't prove a hypothesis. You can only disprove it. In US and many other countries' courts, you don't need to prove your innocence, the prosecutor needs to disprove it 'beyond a reasonable doubt.'

In our spiritual walks, how would we disprove our 'being like Christ'? If people see the sinfulness in us, our godliness would be disproved. What are the respectable sins?

• Ungodliness--rarely doing anything for the glory of God, for the honor of God and developing a closer relationship with Him and becoming more conformed with His image;
• Anxiety and Frustration
• Discontentment
• Unthankfulness
• Pride
• Selfishness
• Lack of self-control
• Impatience and Irritability--my personal demons
• Anger
• Judgmentalism--what we are accused of by those outside the church
• Envy, Jealousy
• Sins of the Tongue
• Worldliness

Many of those, I'm sure, sound and look familiar. If you're filled with the Holy Spirit and are capable of bearing the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5.22-23), would there be any evidence from the list above to disprove it?

I said impatience and irritability are my personal demons and I've been praying that God would reveal to me and help me to overcome them. Tough sometimes in traffic! But possible.