secret

More About Humility

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“Humility is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing done to us, to feel nothing against us. It is to be at rest when nobody praises us and when we are blamed and despised. It is to have a blessed home in the Lord where we can go in and shut the door and kneel to our Father in secret, and be at peace when all around is trouble” (Andrew Murray).

I still think a lot about a book I read a couple of years ago called Unoffendable by Brant Hansen. It completely blew me away and forever changed my perspective on believers and anger. Basically, we should be the least offendable people on the planet because we know what grace looks like and what we were without it. We know that apart from grace, there is nothing too base for us to fall into.

Again, humility isn’t thinking less of yourself but thinking about yourself less. It’s to take all the frustration and anger to the Lord in secet and leave it there, knowing that ultimate vengeance is in God’s hands not mine. It’s to be at peace and not get caught up in the perpetual turmoil and anxiety that marks the waking life of most of the world’s population.

Humility is to see ourselves the way God sees us through the lens of seeing God as He is. Once we understand that the world does not in fact revolve around us, we see that God’s plans are so much bigger than us as individuals. We can then gladly serve wherever God calls us out of the overflow of His love to the multitudes on stages or to the few in secret. Either way, the joy of the Lord will be our strength.

Lord, I know this is a dangerous prayer, but make us humble. Keep us from the pride of thinking we can achieve Your will and Your ways through our own means instead of us relying 100% on You for everything at every moment of every single day. Amen.

A Clear Command

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

“If someone claims, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother or sister, then he is a liar. Anyone who does not love a brother or sister, whom he has seen, cannot possibly love God, whom he has never seen. He gave us a clear command, that all who love God must also love their brothers and sisters” (1 John 4:20-21).

That’s one of those verses that most of us wishes wasn’t in the Bible. Maybe if John had said “anyone who does not try to love a brother or sister,” then it would have been a lot easier to swallow.

But as my pastor says, Jesus never gives us an out when it comes to obedience. We’re never given the okay to be disobedient.

Even when the other person is hard to get along with? Yes.

Even when the other person does and says hateful things? Yes.

Even when it seems beyond our capacity to love that person? Yes.

If it seems too hard, remember that God loved you while you were His enemy and set against everything He stood for. Plus, it’s not really your love that you love these people with anyway.

It goes like this. Jesus fills you up with so much love that you can’t contain it all and it splashes onto those around you. Even those people who aren’t your favorites.

The key isn’t to grit your teeth, eat your Wheaties, and try harder when it comes to loving these people. The secret is spending more time with Jesus, enough time for His love to really soak in. And while you’re with Jesus, you could pray for these people, because it’s hard to keep hating someone after you’ve been fervently praying for them.

Oh, and by praying for them, I don’t mean praying for the earth to swallow them up or for them to get hit by a bus. You pray for them like you pray for those you love– that they will know and understand the love God has for them, that they find healing from the people who wounded them in the past, and that they prosper and succeed.