Yesterday evening, Bob Lepine challenged us to ask ourselves what was holding us back from obeying God wholeheartedly and saying “yes” in surrender to His will. What “lesser things”, he asked, might be holding you back from godly maturity?

The Spirit supplied an answer immediately: Me. That simple word sums up the tug-of-war that’s been going on in my heart days before I arrived.

As I’ve been taking the time to be quiet before God yesterday and today, the motives I’ve had behind many things are being exposed. Even while I’m praising Him in words, I’m often so much more concerned with making my name look good than Christ’s.

So here I am, in one of the most conducive settings possible to focus entirely on Christ—surrounded with godly men and women, singing with 2,500 followers of Jesus, listening to powerful messages extolling the glory of God. And yet, within the past few hours, I’ve still been wobbling back and forth with being strikingly self-centric. How much littler can you get than that?

But here’s the amazing part. Yes, God is revealing idolatry and hypocrisy in me. And yet—it isn’t all ‘woe-is-me’. I’m not sludging knee-deep in condemnation. I’m being humbled, I’m repenting—and there’s joy in it.

Which is amazing.

If you don’t really know me, I should explain: it really isn’t very difficult for me to get trapped in a merry-go-round of self-centeredness. Even the opportunity to jump off-- with conviction-- can easily turn into more self-centered thinking about the sin itself.

Because of the emphasis on the gospel, God graciously isn’t allowing that to happen right now. There's nothing sweeter (and more necessary for my soul) than hearing the gospel over, over and over in different ways, from different people—and the gospel is being proclaimed everywhere right now, from the speakers on stage to our table-mates at meals. It’s been so re-focusing to hear God’s works praised all throughout the day—in-between bites of cream-cheese slathered bagels and pineapple at breakfast, listening to different sessions, and even walking through the halls. (Keeping His works on my lips like that is one thing I plan on taking home with me.) Through the speakers and people here, God’s showing me His glory in the forgiveness and freedom He offers through the Cross.

Since the emphasis of the gospel isn’t on me anyway, that means the focus doesn’t stay on my dirtiness—and I can be freed to praise Him honestly. This really is all about Jesus.