Humility

Today I started the book "Humility & Absolute Surrender" by Andrew Murray. I choose this book next in my list because I am an extremely judgmental and prideful person. God has shown me how selfish my thoughts are most of the time. They are consumed with me, usually in comparing with others. God is gracious to me in two ways when this happens though.

First, He forgives my prideful thoughts and counts me righteous because of Christ's selfless act of salvation on the cross. Secondly, He usually puts me in situations where someone is more talented than I am, therefore I am humbled. These moments are hard, because I don't want people to be better than me, but I praise Him for showing me and adding to my sanctification.

In the preface, Andrew says, "In our ordinary religious teaching, the second aspect has been too exclusively put in the foreground, so that some have even gone to the extreme of saying that we must keep sinning if we are indeed to keep humble. Others again have thought that the strength of self-condemnation is the secret of humility.

"And the Christian life has suffered loss, where believers have not been distinctly guided to see that, even in our relation as creatures, nothing is more natural and beautiful and blessed than to be nothing, that God may be all; or where it has not been made clear that it is not sin that humbles most, but grace, and that it is the soul, led through its sinfulness to be occupied with God in his wonderful glory as God, as Creator and Redeemer, that will truly take the lowest place before him."

This is a common misconception that I had bought into. I would think about my sinfulness and use that as my humility and to an extent that is good. If we have a healthy view of how sinful we are, it shows us how important the cross is, which increases our view of grace. That doesn't mean that we sin more. It just means that we recognize how sinful we are already.

The cross is the most humbling act in the history of the world, but too often we take it for granted. We continue through our lives thinking we are cooler than others, better than others, and more worthy than others, when reality is that we are all dust. Dust that sinned and deserved eternal punishment. But instead Jesus died so that we might live. This should baffle us.

As a last point, I want to speak to the "super-Christians" in our bible-belt region. Beware of the constant judging and justifying that you do to yourself and others. How many times have you been listening to a sermon and thought "oh, _______ (< insert name) could use this sermon." How many times do you justify the things you do because either, others have done them and so it's ok, or someone has wronged you so it was ok to respond the way you did.

I only bring this up, because these are the things that I do constantly, and God has shown me that I am wrong. Even now I have to battle the thoughts of "oh, I hope so and so will read my blog post." I am a sinful human being that fails, but by God's grace, is forgiven and pointed back to doing the right thing. I thank God for putting up with me and my sinfulness, and I also want to thank my friends, family and mentors for doing the same. You all have been a blessing to me. Thank you.