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In March 2009, Dr. Bruce Wilkinson challenged us to leave the local church and carry the message of forgiveness God had given us to the church worldwide. We immediately pushed back at the suggestion because pastoring the local church was our calling and the primary reason we had not quit the ministry after all we had gone through. Dr. Wilkinson's response was, "Don't take my word for it; go ask a mentor you trust and see what they think God wants you to do." As many of you know, if you’ve heard the Forgiving Forward story, I met with Tom Rowe on March 19, 2009, who affirmed what Bruce Wilkinson was suggesting to us. Later that day, as we prayed together, Toni and I confirmed in our spirits that we were to launch what has become Forgiving Forward.

Still, at our core we were wrestling with the decision and all the logistics involved. We knew we needed help working through it, so we reached out to John and Kathie Sipple to get their counsel.

On July 4, 1776, 250 years ago this Saturday, during the 2nd Continental Congress, the 56 delegates from the 13 original American Colonies voted to approve and adopt the Declaration of Independence, thereby declaring themselves free from the tyrannical rule of King George of Great Britain. Drafted by Thomas Jefferson and edited by John Adams and others, the Preamble famously proclaims:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

In what is considered to be one of the most significant lines in historical literature, Jefferson declares the undeniable truth that deep within the human soul is the yearning for freedom. The Declaration of Independence formalized the American Revolutionary War, in which our founding fathers fought and died to secure our independence as a nation so as to provide the liberties and benefits we are now afforded as citizens of this great nation. Our freedom was purchased with their blood! We honor them by remembering their sacrifice and living in the freedom they purchased for us.

We live in a culture that bombards us with demands for self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency is the mindset that says, “I can handle this.” “Look at all I’ve done.” or “If I need God, I will give Him a call.” An elevated view of myself always comes from a low view of God.

Ben Patterson said, “We have trivialized God.” If we are honest with ourselves, we are consistently guilty of downsizing God. When we do, we invariably upsize ourselves. We have been duped into believing our own press clippings and not enough of God’s Word. Forgetting who is ultimately responsible for our success, we are seduced into believing that we are self-sufficient and we don’t need God. The consequences could not be more tragic.

In 2 Chronicles 26, we find the account of an Old Testament king who suffered the consequences of becoming self-sufficient. Uzziah was 16 years old when he became king of Judah; he ruled 52 years and “did right in the sight of the Lord.” The historian Jerome said, “The national glory of Israel died with King Uzziah and has never returned to this day.”

Uzziah was brilliant in many areas. He was a builder. He built Eloth (vs 2), cities around Ashdod (vs 6), towers in the wilderness and on the gates of Jerusalem, as well as fortified corner buttresses on the walls (vs 9-10). He was an agriculturalist; he built cisterns in the dry arid land of Israel to water his livestock, crops, and vineyards (vs 10). He was a military mastermind and inventor. According to verse 15, Uzziah was responsible for the creation of the crossbow and catapults.

Biblically, a posture is a physical position in worship that reflects the heart's attitude of reverence towards God and our dependence on Him. At the beginning of this year, the Lord impressed on us that there are six postures—six mindsets—that He wants to undergird and inform our prayers for Forgiving Forward.

• All for God’s Glory

• Jesus Focused

• Shepherd Led

• Gospel-Centric

• Abiding Trust

• Self Denied

This is the sixth in a series of blogs unpacking each of the postures that guide the ministry of Forgiving Forward. The sixth posture is:

Self Denied

He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.

Matthew 10:39

Could it be that the biggest challenge to God's glory and position in our lives is us? Is it possible that we have met our own worst enemy, and it’s the dude or dudette staring back at us in the mirror?

“I have now concentrated all my prayers into one, and that one prayer is this, that I may die to self, and live wholly to Him.”

Charles H. Spurgeon

At the core of the original sin in Genesis 3 was the lure of self-determination, of choosing our will over God’s will, our choice over God’s command. With two bites of the fruit, the flesh of mankind was born, which spread into the DNA of every one of Adam’s descendants, all the way down to you and me. The flesh is the spiritual force that dwells within us which is anti-God and produces sin in us.  As long as our earthsuits are breathing, even after we move from death to Life in Jesus, the flesh entices us to continue to eat from the same tree our first father tasted. And we do—constantly—and everything becomes about ME, what I want, what I think I need over God’s will. It always ends with the same results—Death! Not the same spiritual death Adam and Eve experienced, but relational death. We are still God’s children, but we lose the joy of His Life in us.