Tag: humility

James 4:1-7

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            “Do you know where your fights and arguments come from? They come from the selfish desires that war within you. 2 You want things, but you do not have them. So you are ready to kill and are jealous of other people, but you still cannot get what you want. So you argue and fight. You do not get what you want, because you do not ask God. 3 Or when you ask, you do not receive because the reason you ask is wrong. You want things so you can use them for your own pleasures.  4 So, you are not loyal to God! You should know that loving the world is the same as hating God. Anyone who wants to be a friend of the world becomes God’s enemy. 5 Do you think the Scripture means nothing that says, ‘The Spirit that God made to live in us wants us for himself alone’? 6 But God gives us even more grace, as the Scripture says,
‘God is against the proud,
but he gives grace to the humble.’ Proverbs 3:34
7 So give yourselves completely to God. Stand against the devil, and the devil will run from you” (NCV).
 
            There is a lot that can be unpacked here in these practical verses filled with dense meaning for our lives.  But a simple observation will suffice for today:  Prayer to God requires humility.
 
            The person who is captain of his own soul, moves and shakes the circumstances around him, controls and manipulates people, and who throws tantrums and verbally decapitates others to get his way sees himself as the way to get what he wants.  God only comes into the picture if he cannot seem to take for himself what he so desires.  Prayer is the last ditch attempt to control God.  And God will have none of it.
 
            All things must begin with prayer, be sustained by prayer, and end with prayer.  If we ask anything in the name of Jesus, it will be heard by God and answered by him.  God is God, and I am not.  Therefore, I must come to him with this understanding, with the humility to recognize that I desperately need him for everything.  Take some extended time today and meditate on these verses, letting prayers arise to God as a result.  For in the weakness of our surrender we find the strength of life.
 

 

            Holy God, you cannot abide with the ways of this fallen world.  Help me to connect with you on your terms in your way so that my faith might be active and effective in all I do for the sake of Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Mark 7:24-30

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            Not much happens until something becomes urgent.  A doctor, a financial planner, or a preacher can tell us something until they are blue in the face.  But it won’t mean much without a sense of urgency that some sort of change must occur – that the way things currently exist isn’t going to cut it any longer.  When it comes to the Christian life, law and duty can only take us so far – we need the gospel of grace.
 
            Today’s Gospel lesson has a Gentile Canaanite woman (who is about as far from God as one can get in the ancient world) coming to Jesus with a keen sense of urgency.  She is not concerned about appearances or masking her pain; she cares about seeing her daughter healed of her terrible suffering from demonization.  The woman sees in Jesus the answer to her daughter’s problem.  She begged Jesus to act.  But Jesus puts her off.
 
            A superficial reading of this story might lead us to think that Jesus is either aloof or elitist.  But I think a better way of looking at Christ’s response of not immediately healing the daughter is looking at the episode through the lenses of patience and perseverance.  God is not some coin machine that we can drop in a dollar and get immediate change.  The Godhead is not some system to figure out in order to work the angles to get what we want.  Here’s what I believe the real point of the story is for us:  The woman had to go hard after Jesus, to keep going after him, and to exercise her faith muscle to its fullest extent.
 
            The woman looked for grace, kept going after God’s mercy, and was honored for her persistent faith.  We don’t need to write an essay to God in prayer about why he should answer us and try and convince him of our righteous cause – we just need to seek the mercy of God in Christ with determination.  Begging isn’t pretty and it isn’t comfortable.  But being poor in spirit is the only posture that Jesus is really concerned about recognizing.
 

 

            Gracious God, I beg you to bring healing, spiritual health, and relational wholeness to your church everywhere so that the name of Jesus is exalted in the world.  Amen.

Remain Humble

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
            One of the most real of realities when it comes to church ministry is this:  you can do everything that needs to be done in laying strategy, planning for ministry, and implementing it – but still fail.  Not every ministry goes as planned.  Not every person is blessed by what you do.  We are all limited in our imaginations, resources, and spiritual gifts.  There is no ironclad prescription for church success.  But you probably already know this from your own personal experience, or just from watching others.  You will never find any pastor or Christian ministry leader who controlled every variable and planned for every contingency and always pulls-off every endeavor to perfection.  Sometimes we just need to be reminded that there are no guarantees.
 
            We must, then, come back to the practice of self-control – of continually monitoring our own internal motivations and desires so that they are in constant alignment with the words and ways of Jesus.  Another one of those really real realities when it comes to church ministry is that pride and hubris are far and away the most insidious problems a pastor or leader will ever face.  It is gratifying to be a leader and exercise pastoral care, teach others, and mentor young people.  It’s also far too easy to be seduced by your own perceived power and importance and blame any shortcomings on cranky parishioners.
 
            Humility is the path to resolving arrogance and the only true road of Christian discipleship.  Out of all the characteristics that Jesus could describe himself, the only two words he ever used were “gentle and humble” (Matthew 11:29).  Jesus is our perfect and true example of the leader who always ministered with a complete sense of his divine power, human limitations, and concern for others.  Christ never believed he was the reason for his own success, but always connected what he did and was doing to the will of his Father in heaven.
 
            You can only avoid the seduction of arrogant pride when you recognize that you are not God and need the help of others.  Wise church leadership knows they can’t do it alone and they act accordingly.  Truly humble pastors dig a hole, throw their ego into it, and pour concrete on top of it.  They do not continually chatter-on with certainties and answers but, instead, are committed to deep listening to those around them.  They give generous and sincere credit to others.  They think about how to build up the Body of Christ, not their own puffed up press about themselves.
 
            It takes a lot of courage to be humble.  It requires a lot of bravery to admit you are not always right; that you cannot always anticipate every congregant’s needs; that you cannot solve every problem in the church; that you cannot envision everything the church is supposed to do and to be; that you are not always congenial; that you make mistakes; that you are sometimes grumpy like everyone else; and, that you are a real live human being.
 

 

            When a pastor lets his/her guard down and becomes real and vulnerable, then biblical faith can begin to take root and together clergy and laity can create something that they never could alone.  We all must remain humble and unassuming.  We all need to persist in being open and full of wonder to God’s world and Christ’s church.  We all need to be down-to-earth and keep our feet on the ground no matter the level of success or failure.  We all are dependent on God.

Philippians 1:12-18

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment
            It was President Ronald Reagan who said, “There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.”  The ability to have a disinterest in attention and freedom from selfishness comes from a place of humility and strength – the strength to know oneself well and be secure in that knowledge, as well as the humility to care more about the cause than self.
 
            The Apostle Paul had so learned humility from his Lord, and was so thoroughly convinced of the gospel’s centrality that he did not care who got the credit when it came to proclaiming Jesus.  “Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will….  The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment.  What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.”
 
            The burning, driving, constant, and passionate pursuit of Paul was the advance of the gospel.  He wanted the entire world to know Jesus Christ crucified, risen from death, ascended and coming again.  And Paul would do anything and drain himself of every drop of self-centeredness in order to champion that great cause of seeing people repent and believe the gospel.
 
            Is your heart enamored with Jesus?  Is it hot with the desire to see the gospel of grace transform the world?  Do you lay awake at night wondering how to introduce Jesus to others?  Is the great cause of your life to find ways of meeting the world’s deep need with the deep love of Christ?  Attention and recognition are overrated.  Instead, give up your life and you will find it.
 

 

            Gracious God, thank you for the example of your servant Paul.  I rejoice in what you did in and through his life.  I am available for your purposes.  Use me in the advance of your gospel of grace so that I might more fully participate in your grand forgiveness mission.  Amen.