Nowadays, when one mentally Googles what being blessed means, Jesus’ idea of bliss doesn’t even pull up in our psychological search engine. We think being blessed equals having a 9,000 square foot home with a yacht out back in the canal loaded down with Cristal and ten of Hef’s randy girlfriends.

Yes, blessing to postmoderns entails:

1. having a face and body like Brad Pitt (if you’re a man),

2. having the face, lips, breasts and legs of Angelina Jolie (if you’re a woman or, I guess, a transsexual),

3. having more sex,

4. having more money,

5. having more power,

6. having more __________ ,

7. being on TV,

8. having faster internet service,

9. having a RAZR, no, a BlackBerry,

10. and, of course, having longer and stronger erections.

Essentially, being blessed has been deduced, as Dennis Miller says, to having a life that resembles a lite beer commercial.

Christ’s idea of being fortunate doesn’t fly with the feckless and unfounded, and that indictment goes for most all of us—Republicans, Democrats, Christians and the Dixie Chunks.

As far as pursuits and passions go, we deem as important stuff that Christ deems as damnable. A substance-less society has sold us a plate of crap about what our priorities should be, and we not only wolfed down that meal and licked the plate—but we’ve bellied back up to the buffet line and are begging for seconds.

Take the deadly sin of pride, for instance. Pride, as Os Guinness states, “Historically [has been] seen as the first, worst, and most prevalent of the seven deadly sins. It is either the source or the chief component of all other sin. Pride is also the first of the sins of the spirit, which are ‘cold’ but highly respectable. Its source is neither the world nor the flesh, but the devil. This first vice is unique in that it is the one vice of which its perpetrator is frequently unaware.”

Heck, we live in a day where the deadly sin of pride has actually been twisted into a virtue. Today we hear that, “You should love yourself, pet yourself and stroke yourself because you, you are truly, truly special and can do no wrong, you little self-obsessed me-monkey, you. Now go back to staring into your belly button and don’t let anyone disturb you.” But before some one starts bursting a blood vein in his forehead and revs up to send me a nasty email, understand that I’m not talking about a healthy and sober self respect, but rather an arrogance that manifests in the following:

1. an inflated sense of self worth,

2. a peacock like pre-occupation with self esteem,

3. an extravagant sense of self love (We make Narcissus look like a flagellant monk.),

4. the thought that you are the most important person on the planet, a veritable walking personal pronoun,

5. the arrogant illusion of invulnerability,

6. the claim to the right to your views of things, regardless of reality.

7. being inconsiderate of the selfishness of others.

If the above describes you, well then, today we consider you well-modulated. We’ll even pay you hundreds of thousands of dollars to motivate us and to lead us to be a jerk just like you. Continued...