Saturday, July 22, 2006

Introspection

I am thinking more and more that one of the important things to do in life is too keep looking to Christ.  I feel that when I spend too much time looking inward at myself I get confused because of my great depravity.  I am beginning to feel that one of John Piper's and the Puritans' theological faults is to encourage too much introspection.  I think it is too easy to become confused when you look
into your own soul, because of the magnitude of sin you see there.  The more righteous you are the more sin you will see, just as Paul saw himself as the chief of sinners.

I think that the solution to this problem is too keep my eyes on Christ.  When I look to Christ we see my worth in relation to him.  I see my worth in his infinite love for the reflection of glory in me.  And then when I gaze on my brokenness though Christ I see my brokenness as magnifying God's great and merciful grace in forgiving.

This in turn should cause me to love Christ more as we begin to sense the infinite magnitude of sin against God.

Of course I think Piper emphases theology mostly right, but I feel that at least in my life I do better emotionally and serve Christ better when I keep my eyes on him more and do less of the introspection that Piper encourages.  I suppose that it could be possible to do large amounts of
introspection of our self though the lens of our love for Christ, but I'm not sure that that is really even the best thing to do either.  It seems to me better to just keep our eyes on Christ more and we will naturally discover things about ourselves in our daily lives and of course not all introspection is bad...

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