Pitied, petted, and pampered

THE CHURCH WORLD IS FULL of Christian professors and ministers, Sunday school teachers and workers, evangelists and missionaries in whom the gifts of the Spirit are very manifest, and who bring blessing to multitudes. However, when known ”close up,” they are found to be full of self.

They may have ”forsaken all” for Christ and imagine they would be ready, like the disciples of old, to die for their Master, but deep down in their hidden, private lives there lurks that dark, sinister power of self.

Such persons may wonder, all the while, why they do not have victory over their wounded pride, their touchiness, their greediness, their lovelessness, their failure to experience the promised "rivers of living water.” Ah, the secret is not far away. They secretly and habitually practice “shrine worship” at the shrine of self. There they bow daily and do obeisance. They are fundamental. In the outward Cross they glory, but inwardly they worship another god—and stretch out their hands to serve a pitied, petted, and pampered self-life.—L. E. Maxwell, Born Crucified, 65–66