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It’s all about being humble.

I’m Hank Wilson and welcome to another episode of Living a True Christian Life. These messages are all part of the Christian Life Gospel Ministry and are designed to give us something to think about as we go about our daily lives. Our lives are filled with often contradictory messages, especially when it comes to how we should live our lives as Christians. There are numerous books, tv shows, radio programs etc that are, for the most part, delivered by people who have everyone’s best interest at heart. Sometimes though, it seems like some of what we are told, is really designed more to make us prideful rather than faithful. This thought occurred to me when I was listening to a country station and they played a humorous song by Mac Davis, It’s hard to be humble. In the song, is the line how it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect. Sometimes it seems like we live in a society with that’s actually the theme song for many of us.

 Today, I want to take a look at humility and pride. Essentially what does Jesus teach us about the subject. I will cover 3 questions that I personally have dealt with and prayed about over the years. First, just How important is it to avoid pride and seek humility? Should we avoid pride even in doing God’s work? And, if we stay humble will humility change our relationships with others?

Is it important that we  avoid pride and seek humility? If we were sitting at the feet of Jesus when he was teaching, we would have heard the answer to that question. We find it in Matthew 18:4 ^“So whoever will humble himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Humble ourselves, is one of those concepts that seems to be completely un-American. Which you would think would be the opposite. After all we are told by politicians, preachers, and everyday citizens how the United States is a Christian country. Founded on the principals found in the Bible as taught by Jesus. The reality is that we are a very individualistic culture, we prize those who achieve, those who win. In fact, our very economy and much of our lifestyle is based on showing people all the things we have. Essentially we have switched what Jesus taught around, so that we want to be the greatest here on earth. We believe in the here and now, not the later.

You can see that on our television programs, especially in what is laughingly labeled reality TV. Most of those shows are built around the premise that it is best to be ’the winner’. We take great satisfaction in coming in 1^st, when we compete we want to win. Watch any professional sport. When someone does something that excites the crowd or accomplishes something, they often beat their chest. We exhibit pride, and we all do it or we have done it in the past. The question becomes is that how God really wants us to act?

In James 4:4-6, it is written, “ You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says to no purpose, “He jealously desires the Spirit whom He has made to dwell in us”? But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, ‘God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Grace to the humble, when we actively walk in humility, when we proudly put God first, put others ahead of ourselves we show ourselves to be true believers. Not only are we displaying the correct way to live, we are also adding some protection for ourselves.

We read in Proverbs 18:12, “Before destruction the heart of a person is haughty, But humility goes before honor.” Most of us have heard the old saying, that pride goes before the fall. If we spend all our time pounding our chest about how great we are, what we have, and so on then we are building up ourselves for that fall. Remember what goes up must come down and all we have to do is look at our politicians and some of our wealthiest most publicity seeking Americans to see the truth in that. All they can do is talk about themselves and when the spotlight leaves them, they are left with nothing. Is that what we want for ourselves and our families? Do we really want to be so narcissistic, so self-absorbed that we drive everyone away? Because  Pride can destroy relationships.

In 2 Timothy 3:2-5, we read about just that type of situation. In fact, when reading this and thinking about it, we can relate it to what is going on in our society today. “For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power; avoid such people as these.” Even the most self-centered of us can see this taking place everywhere we look. We see it daily on social media, we read about it and watch it on our TVs. Our society seems to have become void of all morality. We are not civil to each other, we yell, we scream, we hate, all because we have become poisoned by what the world is telling us. We have become members of the cult of the self-important. What others feel, what others need, is not something we think about or care about.  Our pride rules our every waking moment. We have become devoid of humanity. We can even see this in some of, not all, but some of our churches. There are ministers who pound themselves on the chest, saying how great they are and how blessed they are because they have become rich. They take great pride in telling others how to live and how much holier they are than anyone else. So the question we, you and I have to ask is simple, Should we avoid pride even in doing God’s work?

Well again, if we are in the presence of Jesus and listening carefully to His words, then we might have been there when He said, and we find in Matthew 6:1

“Take care not to practice your righteousness in the sight of people, to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” This is one of those weird bits of scripture that can be troubling. If I’m delivering these messages am I guilty of this? It’s all about motives, if you or I do something or tell someone about Christ and His message, and we do it so that others will look at us then yeah there’s a problem. If however, the reason we give someone a bible, pray with someone, donate to a food bank, give our clothing to help the homeless and we do it with out a TV camera in our face, then we are doing it for the right reason. Personally I will guarantee you that God does not have a social media account. Going on social media to brag about what we do, or what we have given is prideful and not what God wants us to do. Just be humble, be like Christ, and after you do something, just let it go. There’s no reason to look around for someone to pat you on the back. No reason to expect someone to tell you what a great person you are.  

What we do, when we do it in the true spirit of humility and as a Christian will affect others.  We will be able to see how our humility change our relationships with other, The changes are internal, they are spelled out in

Ephesians 4:2 “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,” We will be able to see others as they are, that is as children of God. Not everyone who disagrees with us is our enemy. It is not up to us to lecture others on every aspect of their lives as if we are Moses on Mount Sinai. So many times we have a tendency to tell others how bad they are and how good we are, when in fact, we are often just like them. We might not have the same issues they do, but all of us have something in our lives that is troubling.

          Jesus spoke of this in Matthew 7:3 “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” This is the one that I really believe many of today’s preachers seem to forget or ignore. The same goes for those politicians who preach that they are the morality police. Look, it’s very ok, and very Christian that when we see a brother or sister going against the teachings of Jesus that we speak up. HOWEVER,  when we yell and scream at them, and condemn them and then turn right around and do what we condemned them for, we are prideful hypocrites. Do not preach to others about their sins if you or I are doing the same thing. I thought about that when I sat down to prepare this message.

          I love what I do, I enjoy telling people about Jesus, how the Good News, sometimes I fear that I’m getting a big head about my ability to do so. That’s when I have to say a prayer, “Dear Lord Jesus, I come to you today to ask that you help me to keep my feet on the ground and my head from getting too big. Sometimes I think I’m all that and a bag of chips. When those moments take place, please send the Holy Spirit into my life to remind me that I am but a servant. I am but a regular person who tries his best to do your will. I’m not always successful at it, and in those moments I really need your help. Amen

          That’s going to do it for today, remember folks, it is  important that we avoid being prideful and that we seek humility? That we should avoid taking undo pride even when we do God’s work. And, if we stay humble our relationships with others will benefit.

          Remember you can find all my messages on my site cmttradio.com along with how to connect with me on social media. There’s a form there you can use to send me questions or suggestions for something you’d like me to talk about on one of these shows. Also I do have several audiobooks available, that deal with the subjects I discuss here on the program that you can find on Apple Book, Barnes and Noble, Google, etc. Simply search for Welcome to the Rodeo, or my name Hank Wilson.

          Until next time, be nice to each other, stay humble, God Bless and peace y’all

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