WORKING FROM HUMILITY

Pride saturates the church and its leadership. Pride ruins the church and it leadership. If we save twenty souls per day and feed 5000 from a bag from McDonalds, God labels us noisy and clangy if Christ-like love is not prominent. I wonder how often we are wrong in our being right? I wonder how much we coast on the sled of having studied it out and reached a conclusion only to stiff-arm the next batch of seekers with our discoveries.

This was a major problem in Jesus’ day. He called for two extremes: truth and humility on the part of those who learned the truth. At first I thought truth came with my pounding the pulpit while raising my emphatic voice. Not. Truth comes because Jesus said it and not by my/our addition to or subtractions from.

Pride gets in such a toot to be first….the fastest. Humility has a respect and openness to truth because it shares in the awareness man is most frail in understanding and interpreting. If Jesus’ disciples lived with him and still didn’t get it (They scooted like cowards, remember?), we must take in the possibilities we may be lacking in our conclusions. It isn’t wrong to reach a point of conclusion. It is wrong to seal our eyes and ears should we have misunderstood on participle of His revelation.

Can we have confidence? In the Spirit of God; but not in ourselves (II Cor. 3:4-5). Shall we live in assurance? Only in Christ and nothing else (Phil. 4:13). Are we to regard ourselves as useful in the kingdom? Only in humility for God will oppose our pride (I Pet. 5:5). I spent an evening with Ida and Richard, missionaries from Uganda. A tone I see in them I don’t see as much in me is humility. They are gracious, soft-spoken, thankful, and respectful. When I’m with them I see a side of Jesus which is refreshing in my Much America and my Much Church. If we are going to grow in Christ-likeness we must ever strife to work from the launching pad of humility.