HUMILITY

HUMILITY

                I think that sometimes in our Christian pride we approach God more like the Pharisee than like the Publican. I remember way back in the early years of the name it, claim it movement a man named Charles Capps wrote t book called “The King’s Kids.” In essence it taught that as King’s kids we deserve the best of everything. If we believe God for a Cadillac, we can have our Cadillac and so on.

                Well, I think those early attitudes have become more sophisticated these days, but the same sort of pride and arrogance still prevails. Where is the humility that once caused the Publican to say, “God be merciful to me a sinner?

                Perhaps if we started our prayers like that, then we would get off on a right footing. The church of Laodicea in Revelation 3:14-22, represents the last day’s church and it pictures us quite well saying:

                “I know your deeds that you are neither cold nor hot; I would that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ’I am rich, and have become wealthy and have need of nothing,’ and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.” Rev. 3:15-17.

                Often times when we should be beating our breast and asking for God’s mercy, we come to God with heads held high and thank Him that we are not like others. But Jesus clearly said that it was the Publican that went away justified.

                The Pharisee based his confidence before God on the basis of keeping the commandments, while perhaps the Publican understood that keeping them or not; we all fall short of the glory of God. As such we are in total need of the Spirit of Christ living in us so that whatever good comes forth from us comes from Him and not from ourselves.

                Paul was an apostle who was assigned by God to reveal some of the mysteries that had been hidden from ages past and in 2 Cor. 4:6, 7, He releases to us one of those mysteries, saying:            “For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves.”

                What the Pharisee did not understand is that his right standing with God was not based upon his keeping of the Commandments. It was based upon the blood of the Lamb, shed on his behalf for the remission of sins.

                We have this treasure in these clay vessels of ours. The crucified and risen Savior lives in us and it is His righteousness that saves us and not our own. Therefore we do well to pray “God be merciful to me a sinner, rather than to look at our doctrines and our law keeping and to thank God that we are not like others.

                When was the last time that we took food to the hungry, or clothing to the naked, or love to the sick, or comfort to those in prison? In all of our perceptions of our goodness, we often look where God is not looking. And while we may pride ourselves in having the right doctrine or keeping the right day, or eating the right food, or wearing the right clothing Jesus says:

                Is this not the fast which I chose, to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke and to let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke?  Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into the house? When you see the naked to cover him; and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Isa. 58:6-7.

                As we continue to face the ever growing challenges of the last days, I think that we all need a good dose of humility. God said, “If My people who are called by My Name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face… then I will hear from heaven and I will heal their land.”

                We may think we are on a roll with President Trump and that the church is somehow in control. But save by the grace of God and divine intervention, he may never finish his term and when it has been terminated, the demons of hell will rush in to put everything into place for the antichrist and it will come upon most of God’s people as an overwhelming surprise because we have placed our faith in all of the wrong things. Selah.