Tag: humility

Seeking Humility in a world of Pride

by jwswift22, posted in culture, Grow in Grace, our enemies, Pride, Theologically sound, Uncategorized

Humility is the Golden Virtue and without humility all other virtues are rendered meaningless even Hypocritical.

The Golden Virtue of humility, is by its very nature,  something that is more often known by experiential reality being clearly seen in others who are living by the Spirit of the words in the Golden Rule, “ Love your neighbor as yourself” and “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

But this all important way of “being” seen in the Golden Rule is the shallow end of the pool of humility. It is the flow and not the fountainhead.

For example:

If I as a child love my brother and sister and give them of my own things,  doing for them things I would have them do for me  it is good, however those gestures would mean  little if I also decided to Kill our parents .

What I can provide of my own resources is empty and shallow if I have cut off the fountainhead from which the greatest blessings come, it is even treacherous.  It then becomes PRIDE and not Humility.

Pride is not a virtue of course, rather it is the death of all virtues and it mocks all virtues.

There is only one test for humility ……and it is a most humbling one.

God is the fountainhead and if I kill Him in my head, if I kill Him in my heart,  if I eclipse His Glory from my neighbor by hardening my own heart against Him as my all sufficient creator and sustainer and if I deny His existence, I cut supply off from the very source, the fountainhead of all Goodness.

Every “lesser Good”, imprinted on the conscience of man, even if we abide by it is impotent and rogue without being connected to the fountainhead.

Apart from understanding and accepting my place in the created order of things as a child made in the image of God, humility will be a concept in a vacuum; an empty and dried up stream without a source.

If we are not willing to be connected to God we fail the test of humility because we refuse to be Humble in the first order of things.

Yet

“God sends rain on the just and the unjust”

In other words God the fountainhead gives to all liberally but there is a distinction made between the “Just” and the “unjust”.  The  “Just” know the fountainhead, Love the fountainhead and accept and give thanks in Truth to the Lord for His blessings.  The just accept their humble state and are the humble. Their Identity is in God.

The “unjust”, also receive from the fountainhead to a degree but give no thanks, accept no authority over their lives and are the, “Prideful”.

The greatest blessing, the singular blessing that opens up the total fountainhead to us is found in the Gift of God’s Son Jesus Christ. Humility acknowledges need and accepts what is required to meet that need.

The despots of this world always demand we bow the knee to them but with God the knee is bowed in the beautifully freeing reality that God is God and that in Christ we have received mercy upon mercy. We make no demands of God we see that our identity is not based in how we feel but in God and in Christ.

Jesus’ Life, Death and Resurrection become ours through the agency of the gift of faith through the Holy Spirit.

So I pray,

“Lord, grant me humility lest PRIDE keep me locked into some lesser fleeting identity attached to money, sex, position or feelings. At death none of these will do. Grant me only eternal life through Jesus Christ. (“May thy will be done on earth as in heaven.” )And help me to be some vessel to point the way out of this Pride obsessed world parading around in its various forms in the name of the self.”

We all have received many wounds while PRIDE rode over our heads and held us fast through our passions and our fears.  Ought we not to be humble towards those who now receive the wounds while we have been set free?

Let’s get serious about “Humility” by looking away from ourselves and to the fountainhead remembering that the distinction lies in God since we all have lived in the narrow confines of pride in some way and only in Christ did we ever see the darkness of it.

Unleavened bread, a picture of authenticity.

by jwswift22, posted in culture, Grow in Grace

When we think of a relationship with God we intuitively know that we must always be real with him.

After all, God knows the heart. ‘Nothing is hidden from His sight”.  A person in true prayer before God comes quickly to recognize that there is no choice but to  be open and sincere, to be “unleavened”

We also have a wonderful promise of assurance that as we do come to Him, even to confess our many faults,—as David well knew ,— God will not reject us.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;   A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. Psalm 51:17

This of course is a principle of an Eternal Kingdom, where God ,…

“…who was and is and is to come”,      reigns now both in heaven and the hearts of His own children.

Yet, how difficult it is to be real in “This present  earthly world or kingdom”!!!

It is not a part of the value system of this” present earthly  kingdom” where God is ignored, denied, and where men  hide from, and even  hate God.

As a principle, “authenticity” may be given lip service and may even be applauded to a certain degree in this world. ( Of course all within respectable bounds). Never to acknowledge ones full spiritual poverty.  “Lets Just all agree that were OK and just need to “self improve”.

Personal reputation or the keeping up of false appearances will be the undoing of us if we try to hold on to it.  Holding on to this just shows that the “fear of man” (what people think of us) is more important than “The fear of God”.

Being completely unleavened is a work that only the Holy Spirit can perform in the heart.

As John the Baptist stood crying out on the shores of the Jordan, “Repent and be baptized” , it was those who knew themselves to be “Poor in spirit” and who desired above all else to be right with God who were drawn toward God ,  it was those ones who could  …step out from the crowd …and  identify themselves before their peers as needing God more than a reputation before man.  There stepping out  was not out of an abundance of personal virtue but out of a lack of it.   They chose to identify with God even though they would forever be self identified sinners in need of rescue.

And the really amazing thing is, that Jesus himself  at the very beginning of His ministry, stepped into the waters of the Jordan to be baptized by John!!

Why?!!!        I mean even John Knew that Jesus had no need to repent of sin. John almost refused to do it,  stating  to Jesus. “It is I who NEED be baptized by you and yet you come to me?”

Jesus stepped into those waters because He came to identify with “Sinners”.

Why?        Because Jesus would take upon Himself the very sins of those whom He came to save.

This is basic Christianity; Basic Gospel.  Lose this and there is no Gospel to tell.

Jesus is “The bread of Life”. The true and perfect unleavened —“bread of Life ,“who came down from heaven.

The way to God is through the “unleavened way”.  Coming as sinner to God through Christ, who identifies with sinners who are willing to let their knowledge of spiritual poverty drive them to Him.

The Law of God against sinners stands.  Yet as the Apostle Paul proclaims, “Christ is the end of the law for all who believe”, because Christ fulfills the law for us.

In the end, when this present  life is slipping away— and it will— our reputation before men will be a hollow comfort, even a torture to us, if we have not allowed the ultimate reality of the kingdom of God to supersede this temporary reality so that we act according to “Ultimate Reality” .

We see this if we follow the logic of Jesus, speaking of the “leavened” pharisees who stood upon their own righteousness and reputation before men, ” I tell you the truth they have already have their reward in full”.  Jesus said such are excluded from the Kingdom of God because they refuse to enter into it.

But to have God Himself, and the knowledge of His forgiveness and Love , because we have settled the issue through relationship to Christ while we could, will be more than a comfort at death.

It will be the entrance of eternal Joy, to a degree that as we slip away into Gods eternal presence, we will know the full, undiluted, unleavened joy of perfect fellowship through the eternal ages!!!   It is those who are”in Christ” that will enter.

That day will  most certainly come to all and the eternal realities will roll back every covering anyway so why not come and stand in the light of Christ as a trophy of God’s grace while we live?  Now is the time to be unleavened the cost will seem like nothing compared to what we gain in Christ!!

As John Newton , the author of Amazing Grace so famously said ,

“Although my memory’s fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.”

Oh Lord, forgive, love, cleanse, guide and transform us as we look to you in unleavened honesty may we have no less than all you offer in Christ. Amen.