Copyright 2013 by Shea Oakley
\nAll rights reserved<\/p>\n
\u201cPersonal Empowerment\u201d is the mantra of this age. We in the West are constantly being told that the power to get what we want for ourselves is somehow our birthright. It is being taught through advertising, through popular entertainment and, perhaps more subtly, through our educational system. From childhood we are being sold the idea that the key to life is to put ourselves at the center of our own personal universes and cultivate a mindset that there is no limit to what we can ultimately make our own. This will all come about if we just empower ourselves. How we get that power is by believing, first, that we are \u201cworth it\u201d and than doing whatever it takes to acquire the means to fulfill our dreams. These dreams are most often of our own design. <\/p>\n
The reality of inherent and intrinsic human limitation is not a part of this self-powered self-fulfillment ideal. Many times also missing is any idea of service to others being part of the true route to real life. Most importantly the concept of our dependence on, and moral obligation to, a Creator and Sustainer of life is not included in the human empowerment equation. This should not too surprising since the original fall of our race was about buying into the proposition of \u201cbecoming as God\u201d instead of knowing, loving and serving the true God. <\/p>\n
However the 21st Century West has enshrined this core aspect of original sin and raised it to a level of acceptance, and actual celebration, perhaps unknown in all of human history thus far.<\/p>\n
The sad thing is that it isn\u2019t just the secular West that has willingly been hoodwinked by an idea as old as the Serpent; too often it is the Western church as well. While blatant self-empowerment rhetoric may not be as evident in our Christian subculture it has been unconsciously adopted by many Christians. The reason for this is simple: we are reading the same ads, watching the same TV shows and often going to the same schools and colleges as our secular neighbors. Spend enough time immersed in the world and it becomes impossible not to be more influenced by the culture around us than by the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n
One of the hardest things for fallen human beings to embrace, even those who profess to follow Christ, is personal weakness. It does not feel good to deeply recognize our absolute powerlessness to attain to anything of truly eternal worth, starting with salvation itself. Power for its own sake or for the purpose of achieving self-centered goals can feel good for a time. All sin is pleasurable for a season, the Bible tells us, and the seeming possession of great personal power is certainly no exception. In the end, however, it destroys us. We may well \u201cachieve our dreams\u201d living in the First World, but if we do so apart from the will of the One who created us for his perfect and loving purposes we will eventually end up with nothing but ashes and despair\u2026whether in this life or the next.<\/p>\n
For we who call ourselves followers of Christ it is imperative to wake up to the societal deception we have allowed to influence our lives and the life of the Church. We must divest ourselves of any power that our Lord has not given us for His purpose. Otherwise we will progressively forget Him as we pursue our own path through the use of illegitimate power, and all use of power for selfish goals is illegitimate by Biblical definition. Personal weakness is not an easy thing to accept, no, but it is only in such accepted weakness that we may find the strength to truly live as on to God\u2026and so truly live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Copyright 2013 by Shea Oakley All rights reserved \u201cPersonal Empowerment\u201d is the mantra of this age. We in the West are constantly being told that the power to get what we want for ourselves is somehow our birthright. It is being taught through advertising, through popular entertainment and, perhaps more subtly, through our educational system.… <\/p>\n