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When most people hear the name Ronaldo, they think CR7, Portuguese goal machine, the main man at Real Madrid. Before Ronaldo, there was another Ronaldo, the original Ronaldo. The Brazilian no 9, scourge of defenses, before injuries and weight gain robbed him of his blistering pace.
Apart from his ridiculous haircut at the 2002, the other thing that was synonymous with Ronaldo was his trademark finger-wagging celebration. It was a gesture fans were fond of, if you weren't in the opposition-that is.
Ronaldo frequently used this gesture, given his goal scoring prowess, but he isn't the only one to use it. The finger-wagging gesture is more commonly used when you are passing judgement on somebody, warning them, expressing your criticism of their behavior. More often than not, people shy from doing it openly to avoid being deemed hypercritical.Instead, they wag their fingers inwardly or criticize others via words.
People do this a lot, Christians even, to damaging effect. As much as sometimes people pass judgement with good intentions of correcting somebody else, sometimes it's taken a little bit too far. It has taken me some time to learn that discipleship is not about fixing people. It's not about constantly scrutinizing their sin and carrying out jicho-pevu like investigations to see what offense they've committed this time. As much as we have a right to point out somebody's mistakes, it shouldn't be our focus 24/7.
Sometimes mistakes/shortcomings are 'identified' before they even happen just based on the fact that someone did something wrong in the past and all the signs are leading to him/her doing it again. Judgement is passed swiftly without one knowing all the facts and swiftly concluding that he/she/them is in the red because of how things appear to look on the surface.
The log in my eye and the spec in somebody else's, quite a contrast Jesus made between the two. Romans 2:1 reads, "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgement on someone else for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgement do the same things."
Just because I sin differently to somebody else shouldn't give me the right to obsess and whine about their iniquites, I may have far more greater than sins than I would care to think or talk about. It was then that I was conveniently reminded, that if God could remove the log from my eye, which he has done severally, why should it be hard for him to remove a spec from another's eye without my involvement? Is he too limited to do that? Not at all!!!
As I have grown in my walk with Christ, overcoming temptations, iniquities and growing in my knowledge of Christ, pride has sadly never been to far from my life. Pride has a habit of attributing victories that were God's to myself. Pride has seen me mistakenly think that the child of God I am today was primarily my doing or that the reason I don't struggle with sins that someone else does is because of my will. Big, big mistake. Fortunately for me, God's word rebukes and I stumbled upon Romans 3:10-11 which states that there is no-one righteous, not even one; there is no-one who understands, no- one who seeks God.
Instead, Philippians 2:13 insists that it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Picture that. God working in you to worship himself, to be righteous, because by yourself, as Romans 3:10-11 implies, you would never seek him. I cringe at the very thought. It humbles me, nullifying any reason I have to wag the finger at someone else.
Ephesians 2:8-9 is yet another timely reminder. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works so that no-one can boast. Salvation isn't a one-time thing, it's a process of 3 tenses, justification, sanctification and glorification.
You are first saved or justified when you admit you are unable to save yourself from the consequences of sin and you believe that only Jesus Christ can do that, because of the perfect self-sacrifice he made to God on the cross so that we may have eternal life. On believing he did so and accept his gift of salvation, we are forgiven, made right with God and justified as if we had never sinned.
It doesn't end there. Being forgiven doesn't mean one is free from sin's influence/temptation. One can still sin even if they have accepted God's gift of salvation. The underlying fact is that they are no-longer slaves to sin, they are saved through sanctification, sanctification being the process by which God delivers us from sin's power over us. It is where God makes us holy by giving us the strength to resist sin's influence and overcome it from time to time rather than meekly submit to it because we are human and it is our nature.
I believe this is very critical to the finger-wagger like me, because the third tense which is glorification, salvation through deliverance from sin's presence is only attained when we die. No-one alive is glorified yet, only being sanctified. Sin is still with us and we need God to deliver us from it's influence, we can't do it by ourselves.
I am holy not because I chose to be, but God compels in me a desire to be holy. I seek God through quiet time, through small group fellowships, through witnessing, not because of my own will but because of the Holy Spirit within me who strengthens me and convicts me of righteousness.
I'm not saying, leave it all to God, I'm saying any victory you have over sin, any righteousness you have acquired is by faith, God doing it. I can't laud it over others and sneer at them for struggling because God is ultimately the one responsible for my growth; not me. Therefore, I have no right to wag my finger at another.
Christ urged us to make disciples and by all means, we should do what our loving saviour commanded us to do. Make others follow him, make others thirst after him, follow Christ, follow his teachings, more so by modelling him yourself. Christ came to save the world and not condemn it, the only sinless man had the right to have finger wagging as his trademark but didn't so who am I , with my numerous sins to wag my finger at others.
He corrected them gently, allowing for restoration and I pray that I may learn to do it as much and leave the finger-wagging and the fixing him to him alone because he has proven in my life to be the ultimate fixer, a gentler one at that, may I just be the one to facilitate it with his wisdom and guidance.
Apart from his ridiculous haircut at the 2002, the other thing that was synonymous with Ronaldo was his trademark finger-wagging celebration. It was a gesture fans were fond of, if you weren't in the opposition-that is.
Ronaldo frequently used this gesture, given his goal scoring prowess, but he isn't the only one to use it. The finger-wagging gesture is more commonly used when you are passing judgement on somebody, warning them, expressing your criticism of their behavior. More often than not, people shy from doing it openly to avoid being deemed hypercritical.Instead, they wag their fingers inwardly or criticize others via words.
People do this a lot, Christians even, to damaging effect. As much as sometimes people pass judgement with good intentions of correcting somebody else, sometimes it's taken a little bit too far. It has taken me some time to learn that discipleship is not about fixing people. It's not about constantly scrutinizing their sin and carrying out jicho-pevu like investigations to see what offense they've committed this time. As much as we have a right to point out somebody's mistakes, it shouldn't be our focus 24/7.
Sometimes mistakes/shortcomings are 'identified' before they even happen just based on the fact that someone did something wrong in the past and all the signs are leading to him/her doing it again. Judgement is passed swiftly without one knowing all the facts and swiftly concluding that he/she/them is in the red because of how things appear to look on the surface.
The log in my eye and the spec in somebody else's, quite a contrast Jesus made between the two. Romans 2:1 reads, "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgement on someone else for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgement do the same things."
Just because I sin differently to somebody else shouldn't give me the right to obsess and whine about their iniquites, I may have far more greater than sins than I would care to think or talk about. It was then that I was conveniently reminded, that if God could remove the log from my eye, which he has done severally, why should it be hard for him to remove a spec from another's eye without my involvement? Is he too limited to do that? Not at all!!!
As I have grown in my walk with Christ, overcoming temptations, iniquities and growing in my knowledge of Christ, pride has sadly never been to far from my life. Pride has a habit of attributing victories that were God's to myself. Pride has seen me mistakenly think that the child of God I am today was primarily my doing or that the reason I don't struggle with sins that someone else does is because of my will. Big, big mistake. Fortunately for me, God's word rebukes and I stumbled upon Romans 3:10-11 which states that there is no-one righteous, not even one; there is no-one who understands, no- one who seeks God.
Instead, Philippians 2:13 insists that it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Picture that. God working in you to worship himself, to be righteous, because by yourself, as Romans 3:10-11 implies, you would never seek him. I cringe at the very thought. It humbles me, nullifying any reason I have to wag the finger at someone else.
Ephesians 2:8-9 is yet another timely reminder. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works so that no-one can boast. Salvation isn't a one-time thing, it's a process of 3 tenses, justification, sanctification and glorification.
You are first saved or justified when you admit you are unable to save yourself from the consequences of sin and you believe that only Jesus Christ can do that, because of the perfect self-sacrifice he made to God on the cross so that we may have eternal life. On believing he did so and accept his gift of salvation, we are forgiven, made right with God and justified as if we had never sinned.
It doesn't end there. Being forgiven doesn't mean one is free from sin's influence/temptation. One can still sin even if they have accepted God's gift of salvation. The underlying fact is that they are no-longer slaves to sin, they are saved through sanctification, sanctification being the process by which God delivers us from sin's power over us. It is where God makes us holy by giving us the strength to resist sin's influence and overcome it from time to time rather than meekly submit to it because we are human and it is our nature.
I believe this is very critical to the finger-wagger like me, because the third tense which is glorification, salvation through deliverance from sin's presence is only attained when we die. No-one alive is glorified yet, only being sanctified. Sin is still with us and we need God to deliver us from it's influence, we can't do it by ourselves.
I am holy not because I chose to be, but God compels in me a desire to be holy. I seek God through quiet time, through small group fellowships, through witnessing, not because of my own will but because of the Holy Spirit within me who strengthens me and convicts me of righteousness.
I'm not saying, leave it all to God, I'm saying any victory you have over sin, any righteousness you have acquired is by faith, God doing it. I can't laud it over others and sneer at them for struggling because God is ultimately the one responsible for my growth; not me. Therefore, I have no right to wag my finger at another.
Christ urged us to make disciples and by all means, we should do what our loving saviour commanded us to do. Make others follow him, make others thirst after him, follow Christ, follow his teachings, more so by modelling him yourself. Christ came to save the world and not condemn it, the only sinless man had the right to have finger wagging as his trademark but didn't so who am I , with my numerous sins to wag my finger at others.
He corrected them gently, allowing for restoration and I pray that I may learn to do it as much and leave the finger-wagging and the fixing him to him alone because he has proven in my life to be the ultimate fixer, a gentler one at that, may I just be the one to facilitate it with his wisdom and guidance.
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