Looking at Pride and Humility

For the next few weeks we will be running excerpts from the book that Mike Fontenot and I teamed to write a number of years ago, The Prideful Soul's Guide to Humility. The books is still available and we continue to receive comments about its impact.

      We are writing on this topic not because we think we have arrived at some level that qualifies us to write, or because we think we can do a better job than some others. Only one man was totally qualified by character to write on this subject, and he never wrote anything that we know about for sure, save a few words in the dirt before a trembling woman and a gang of self-righteous religious leaders. We are certainly not writing because we think we have humility all figured out or know every important point to make. We write because this topic simply must be written about. If God would have us proclaim anything, he would have us proclaim the rightness and the power of humility. If there is anything he wants to call our attention to and have us think about, it is humility.

        Passage after passage in the Scriptures make it clear that humility is the way to God’s heart. The proud find the door closed to his inner sanctum, but those who demonstrate humility are welcomed there again and again. By some measures of performance the former group may outshine the latter, but never mind. God does not receive us on the basis of performance. He receives us on the basis of heart, and no quality of heart is more important to him than humility.

        There is nothing more important for a disciple of Jesus than humility. We are not overstating the case to say that we will not be in the kingdom of God at all if we do not heartily embrace the message of this book. We are not saying you must get the message from this book or agree with every detail that you find here. But we are saying you must get the message of humility from somewhere, and put it in your heart.

Talkin' About Heaven

Before his death over a year ago, my dad loaned me a book on heaven. Its thesis is that the Bible tells us a lot more about heaven than most of us realize. It is a bit controversial, but thought provoking.

As I read it, I thought of a line from a Bluegrass gospel tune: “Everybody talkin’ about heaven ain’t goin’ there.” However, a recent poll by the Pew Research group found nearly 70% of Americans believe they are going there. Those results seem to be at odds with Jesus’ statement that the way is narrow and few find it. Sounds like somebody is wrong.

A comment often heard at funerals is something like: “If anybody is going to get to heaven, she will.” The implication is that we get there by doing good. Jesus cast doubt on that idea when he was challenging the rich young ruler. (Luke 18:19).

Jumpy Judgments

I had seen him quite often, but he was one of the few people in the congregation I was in at the time that I had not reached out to in some way. We had never spoken. I had never heard his voice. The truth is that without knowing him at all, I did something I hope people don't do to me: I judged him. Not in any big way, but just in some decisions made in a nano second to talk with someone else and not him.

How Much Is Enough?

“I don’t know about you,” said that little voice in the back of her brain. “How can you think your relationship with God is really that good? You have been enjoying your life lately just a little too much and for one who says she’s a Christian I don’t think you have been doing enough. Do you?”

Wherever it came from, she heard it loud and clear, and for the next few days she replayed it in her head. So often did she hear it that she became anxious and started to lose her joy and her peace. She finally reached out for help. “What do you think?” she said to a friend. “Should I be concerned that I am not doing enough? I mean I still do X and Y. I just don’t do Z as much as I once was. It is just not very possible to do it right now.”

How much is enough? Are you doing enough right now? Trying googling “not doing enough.” You may be amazed. Who’s not doing enough? The United States, Israelis, Palestinians, Iraqis, somebody’s wife, the Pentagon, the Brown family (OJ’s in-laws), the IRS, Hewlett-Packard’s CEO, wireless companies, the Catholic church, and the Jamaican constitution. And, of course, President Bush. Somebody feels strongly that all of these and more aren’t doing enough.

Christians simply must not play this game. God did not design it. We can never do enough, but that’s not the point. We are saved by grace through our faith in the only one who ever did enough. Give your whole heart to the work of God, but give up keeping score.

Ephesians 2:8-10

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

1 Corinthians 15:9-10

and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

9For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them--yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.

Philippians 3:7-9

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 

God Does Not Tire of Us

Those of you who have listened very long to this Web cast or read my book, Mind Change, know that I find in the Old Testament Psalms some of my greatest encouragement and inspiration. I decided a year or two ago to read one psalm each day and make some notes as I went along.

Who is King and Who is Not

From time to time with a Web cast like this one, that might seem to someone to represent another positive thinking approach, I think it is a good idea to remind listeners of something. Everything we try to say here is built on the ultimate and most vital mind change of all.

Hope for the Simple

In Psalm 116:6, the psalmist writes:

The Lord preserves the simple;

I was brought low, and He saved me. (NASB)

Life can be very challenging and I can wonder sometimes if I am up for it.  Actually “sometimes” is not the best word. If I look back at things I have felt over the years or read through some old prayer journals, the word “often” is probably a lot more accurate.