The Cross and Humility

      Our training in the world teaches us to protect self, to defend it, to guard its rights, even to tastefully tout its accomplishments. God’s wisdom is entirely different. Jesus calls us to lose our lives and promises that when we lose them for him and for the Gospel, we will find them.

        It is not hard to see how this fits with humility. The man who is dying to himself will not pridefully defend his sin. He will be grateful for those who help him see it; he will decide to confess it and expose it, being confident that this will lead to encouragement for all around him.

The Truth Will Set You Free

The Truth Sets You Free

        Jesus taught, “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Even those who do not acknowledge Jesus as the Christ agree that this is the highest kind of wisdom. Universities place this saying over their doors. Scientists are fiercely committed to finding the truth. Whenever you ask for guidance or counsel, you want to get it from someone who is fully in touch with the truth. You would not be interested in going on safari with a guide who believed that with just a little extra effort you could outrun a lion or a rhino. You would want a guide fully in touch with the truth, a guide who knows the limitations of human beings and the amazing strength and speed of those in the animal kingdom.

Why Humility?

The basis for humility is quite simple. Humility is the only thing that makes sense because of how eternal and unchanging and powerful God is and how fading and precarious and dependent we are. Nothing you do in your life will ever change that. People are sometimes humble until they enjoy some great success. What fools we can be! A little success, achieved by the grace of God, does not change the nature of reality. It does not change who you are and who God is.

The Gravity of Pride

What is pride? It is almost always an attitude of self-sufficiency and independence (“I can handle this without help” or “I understand my situation better than anyone else”). It is often an attitude of self-righteousness (“I am at least as good as you are, probably better”). It is sometimes an attitude of boastfulness (“Look what I did, and look what this proves I can do”). It is commonly an attitude of superiority (“My intellect is greater, or my accomplishments are greater, or my looks are greater or something about me is greater”). Pride looks down on others. Pride does not listen well. It is stubborn. Pride is not eager to learn because it is confident in what it already knows. Pride is not quick to admit wrong because it fears it may look bad or lose its position. Pride is competitive and is easily threatened. Pride is insecure. Pride finds it hard to rejoice in the success of others.

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.