The chisel. Merriam-Webster defines it as "a metal tool with a flat, sharp end that is used to cut and shape a solid material (such as stone, wood, or metal)".
The chisel. God defines it as the tool He uses to break the hardened, stone-cold-dead parts off of His people, in order to refine us and make us holy as He is holy (Leviticus 19:2). There is an awesome video by The Skit Guys on YouTube that illustrates this process perfectly. You should watch it.....now. Go ahead, I'll wait.....
A few years ago, my entire world was rocked when God decided to work on the most hardened piece of my heart: my PRIDE.
The story goes like this:
I had spent several months in what I would call a wilderness season - I felt spiritually dry, starving, and isolated. Then one day, a friend that I fully respect for his spiritual discernment told me that I had lost my contagious spirit, my enthusiasm, and my spiritual fervor. After a painful ousting from my previous position in ministry, I had been seeking out what my next ministry step would be. He told me God had something He had been wanting to say to me, but that I had been too busy and too distracted to hear it - and in too much pain. He encouraged me to earnestly seek God (which I had been neglecting to do regularly) for what He had to say to me.
My friend's words...they broke me.
Giving Words of knowledge and encouragement through the leading of the Holy Spirit is something I have done since I was a young teenager. It's second nature to me. But on the flip side, receiving that same kind of ministry was extremely difficult for me. I struggled with this when my friend confronted me about seeking God. I struggled with the suggestion that I needed to hear from someone else what I was supposed to do.
The reason: PRIDE.
After the initial shock wore off, I began to seek God diligently on what it was He wanted to say. In the process, I found my prayer journal from 2 years prior, right before I was placed into this ministry position that had caused me such heartache. As I read, my own words jumped off the page at me. In those hand-written pages, I saw more clearly. I saw the joy; the peace; the fervor for serving...
And just when I began to wonder where those character traits had been lost, there it was - in my handwriting in black ink - the darkest place of my heart written there on paper. What I had written was selfish, arrogant, and condemning toward another one of God's Anointed ministers. How I knew I could do it better...and I immediately felt ashamed. This was pride. Black and ugly, right from the depths of my heart.
We know what the scriptures say about it. I will not list them all here, but take a look at this list on BibleGateway.com, and you will see that God detests pride and opposes those who walk in it.
After all, PRIDE is the very sin that caused Lucifer himself to believe he could be like God, or should be worshiped like God, and He was thus cast down from Heaven. Therefore, I believe PRIDE (Satan) is the very antithesis of LOVE (God).
Let us examine this a little more fully:
PRIDE causes us to think so highly of ourselves and our abilities that it causes us believe we are better than someone else; LOVE is not self-seeking, but seeks to be a servant others in true humility (1 Corinthians 13).
PRIDE blinds us to our own sin and shortcomings and makes us harder to chisel and mold into God's image (Like when Jesus accused the Pharisees of ignoring the plank in their eye while making a big deal of the splinter in someone else's - Matthew 7:3-5); LOVE rejoices in the truth that we are sinners saved by grace, and in constant need of God's purification.
PRIDE focuses on our own righteousness and righteous acts, making us hypocrites; LOVE focuses on the One who is love, and love humbly admits that our righteousness is as filthy rags in the sight of a Holy God.
It stands to reason, then, that my own pride is what made it difficult for me to hear God, and to receive the words of wisdom spoken to me in LOVE. It is also worth noting here that my pride was the reason behind the way I had been feeling (far away from God) prior to that conversation. It was pride, in its blackest, most potent form, that had me thinking myself better at leading a ministry than the person who did so before me, and pride that had me believe I could do it better, despite having no experience. It was pride - pure and dark - that kept me from admitting I was not good enough, strong enough, or talented enough to handle it all on my own. When my predecessor returned and I stepped down and allowed him to take over again, it was pride that allowed my heart to be cut wide open at the sight of how quickly the ministry (which had been broken under my leadership) was repaired and propelled forward.
When I began to compare myself to the people around me with all their shortcomings, instead of comparing myself to Jesus Christ, whose name I bear, and who was perfect and sinless in EVERY way, my heart began to sink from acting out of a LOVE for my Savior, to acting out of PRIDE in what I thought I could accomplish.
And I fell.
"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." ~Proverbs 16:18
Oh, but GRACE...
Grace is defined as the freely given and unmerited favor and LOVE of God. Here, again, we find that love is the driving force behind grace (in total opposition to pride). It was God's immense love for us that motivated Him to send his only Son to die to redeem us from the very sins which separate us from Him.
Because of His eternal love for us, He refused to allow that separation to continue without providing us a way to once more be close to him and in fellowship with Him. His Son. Jesus. On the cross. Grace flowed down in the form of the shed blood of the Perfect Lamb of God, and washed away all my sin.
But God, in his infinite wisdom, did not stop there. Salvation is instantaneous. But Sanctification is a process. Sin mars us, makes us hard and unyielding in certain places - the very places God wishes to chisel out of us, in order to make us more like Him...to make us holy, as He is HOLY. (Leviticus 19:2)
When gentle correction would not convince me (because, let's face it, deep down I knew I was wrong to feel the way I did about my abilities vs. someone else's), God broke out the hammer and the chisel and broke off the part of me that no longer looked like Him. I don't want to sugarcoat it either - walking through the death of my pride was a painful process. I had to ask forgiveness from the person who was the object of my rant (and he didn't even know, but I had to confess). Then God started showing me all the other mentalities and heart postures that I had that were rooted in pride. There was a long grieving season - death has that effect.
So I stand this day nearer to the image of my God, because of grace found in the chisel.
Now let me ask you: Are there areas of your life that God desires to rearrange or remove from you in order to make you more like Him? Have you yielded that part to Him?
