Pearls Before Swine
I’ve found a favorite new comic strip. The title, Pearls Before Swine, drew me to it, and after reading it for a few weeks, I found myself addicted. This particular strip really struck me (if you can't read it, click on it to see a bigger version.) Maybe it was the timing or something. Lately, I have been thoroughly disgusted with myself and my selfish heart. Have you ever just gotten SICK of yourself? So sick that you just want to take a vacation from being you? Well, that’s how I’ve felt lately. Being a Christian and trying to love my neighbor has just been so much work lately and I’ve been failing so miserably, that I just want a break from my failure. Loving people is hard. (That’s a horrible to truth, isn’t it?) Thank God that I don’t have to rely on my own goodness for my salvation. Thank God for my constant sanctification of my sinfully hard heart.
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”
1 John 3:16-20
posted by Andrea @ 12:20 PM
6 Comments:
At 10:02 PM,
Molly said…
I love Pearls, too! I'm sad because I used to get it in the Philly paper, but now I have to look at it online :(
At 6:09 AM,
Anonymous said…
Have you watch the movie "what about Bob" lately? You know if you read the federal vision book, specifically the chapter by James Jordan you might find it encouraging. We are maturing and not meriting. If God will be faithful to complete the work he began in us, why do me, you, and everyone else always get frustrated when we do not stop sinning overnight? If we do not believe God's promise that we have life and that abundant in him, what the hell is the matter with us? Sin, and so it goes.
At 9:45 AM,
Anonymous said…
Charlie--was the intent of your comment to be an encouragement or condemnation. Unfortunately it rings with condemnation. All struggle with our sinful hearts on a daily basis. It takes courage to 'stand' before the world and reveal our true heart. Christ did not command us to condemn our neighbors, but to love our neighbors. Our neighbors are everyone, including the fellow believers who surround us. If your intent was not condemnation, but encouragement. Please help us to see the grace and love in the points you made previously. Thank you!
At 11:27 AM,
Anonymous said…
I agree with you and would like to emphasize the fact that our neighbors are our fellow Christians. Amen to that and may we learn to love our fellow Christians as our selves. But what is love? If God loves us (neighbors, Christians, fellow believers), as he does, then we should take a clue from how God loves us. God exhorts in every part of our life to live in comformity to His commands and He gives us grace. If you felt that I was not gracious, I am sorry.
My hope in writing my comment was to both encourage and be gracious by reminding us of God's promises, and exhort us to flee from unbelief in God's promises. This unbelief we see in ourselves whenever we begin to wonder if we are doing any good banging our head against the way to fight our persistent sin. So when we look at life from the view that we are to continually mature instead of just do X amount of good deeds, we are free to confess each sin with the big picture (God's faithfulness to mature us in him till we are perfected in heaven) in mind. From experience I seem to, when looking at life from a "doing good deeds" standpoint, focus on each individual sin and become lost in the details. Almost like looking at a mosiac and missing the beauty for the fragments.
Sue, thanks for the prompting to clarify and I hope that you are both encouraged and exhorted from this. I need to eat lunch now.
At 3:56 PM,
Anonymous said…
Dear Webmaster,
After reading a thoughtful, insightful, and funny post by Andrea, my jaw dropped at that wreckage of comments.
Number 2 of the Seven A's whizzed through my thoughts (www.hispeace.org) then Habakkuk's humility before "The Mystery's of God's Ways" (www.rmccmontana.org) blasted by...
Then I wonder if the webmaster might just encourage us to all get our own blog, and delete unnecessary and inflamatory comments that raise the rapidity of one's heartbeat.
I already did 60 minutes of Turbo Kick Boxing today. Reading Kindred Spirits is my cool down.
Keep up the great job, girls.
amylav
At 10:20 PM,
Andrea said…
Ok, I wasn't going to really respond to any of these comments, but I kind of feel like I have to, since there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding.
Charlie - thank you for your encouragement. I know that is how you meant it and I always appreciate your original ways of putting things. Also, thanks for your phone call and desire to clarify what you meant. It was good chatting with you. Please keep up the comments (and the phone calls, for that matter.)
Sue - Thank YOU for concern for my feelings for what Charlie posted. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and your encouragement. You have always exhibited to me an uncanny ability to love your neighbor and be graceful and charitable towards them. Thanks for your great example.
Amy - thanks for your faithfulness in your reading and comments. I always look forward to the insightful and original comments you have to add to the posts. I hope this particular situation didn't scare you away!
With that, I feel that I should close the comments for this particular post. Kindred Spirits is intentionally supposed to be a light-hearted discussion forum and I hate to see it go any other way. Thanks all for reading and keep up the comments!!
<< Home