HUMILITY
Sunday, March 10, 2002
Dear Family:
The past 2 weeks have been trying to say the least. Then amid these trying times as I sat at my computer working franticly to get my thoughts on Exodus and Romans into print I was bombarded with a worm/virus from (mid-south @ prodigy.net.mx). I received 3 Friday, 10 Saturday and 6 so far today. I have been forced to concentrate on this invasion of my computer to protect it and those on my mailing list and the writings I have not yet completed or backed up. In fact many have never been sent to Ardyce to proof. Some date back 6 years. This worm has literally taken my mind off everything else. Then today as I thought over the verses of Romans 8: 28-32 I was blown away with the message contained in them.
Sometimes there seem to be more trials and tribulation in life especially as we grow older and as we begin to seek a closer relationship with Christ. Many times people will quote Romans 8:28 as some sort of justification for things happening that they don't understand. I do not believe that is the point of this verse. To say that all things work together for those who love God and nothing more would be leaving out the last part of the same verse. Notice that the verse adds "to them who are the called according to his purpose". These words seem to be referring to those who are called. Someone has said, "no one comes to God unless they are called". God is always seeking to draw us into a closer fellowship with himself but God also chooses some people for a specific purpose in this world to complete his purpose and glorify him. Does God always use things we consider bad to achieve his purpose? Certainly not. God will seek to guide his children along the path he has set out for them to walk but his children may not always stay on the path God has set out for them. Sometimes he will use any means to get them back on track. Sometimes he will use loss of a job to get his witness in a new environment to be a witness or even perhaps to receive training from someone he has in that new place. So sometimes it is necessary for the children of God to stop, pray and listen for God to reveal his purpose when things happen. Sometimes the child of God needs to ask what is my purpose? What am I doing to bring glory to God and how am I helping Him to fulfil His purpose?
Romans 8:28-32 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? (KJV)
I believe a child of God can get out of fellowship with God and his fellowman through seemingly trivial or insignificant things. I believe it is possible to become so consumed in "me" that the effect of my actions can ripple down through the family or church. A perfect example of this is found in Numbers. 14: God told the men of the children of Israel to go explore the Promised Land. All the men came back and gave a negative report except Joshua and Caleb. The report was a sign of disbelief or lack of faith that God would do as he said. As a result the children of Israel were lost in the wilderness for 40 years. What a shame and not only were they wondering in the wilderness for 40 years, the giants of the land were not conquered for 300 years until David, with a sling shot and 3 stones, went to battle and killed Goliath.
Num 14:26-34 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron: "How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites. So tell them, 'As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very things I heard you say: In this desert your bodies will fall-- every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me. Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected. But you-- your bodies will fall in this desert. Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the desert. For forty years-- one year for each of the forty days you explored the land-- you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you. (NIV)
It is sad that we will let pride and vainglory disrupt not only our lives but also the lives of those around us. These children did not give a false report but they were stuck in the wilderness because of their father's actions. Sometimes the things we do can set into motion a train of events that causes hurt, anger or broken fellowships to spread like a virus throughout the entire family or church. To get rid of a virus on a computer you had to run a virus scan and clean the virus or immunize that file from the computer or it would infect everyone on your mailing list and everyone on their list and on and on and on. You get the message. Our actions create consequences, which continue to spread until it is cleaned up. Some churches let things fester until it splits the church. Families let things fester until it breaks up the family. What a costly mistake? If God could come to earth as man, take all the sins of the world, for all time, on himself, accept all the guilt, all the shame and bleed on a cross. Who am I to so self centered that I could not give or receive forgiveness for my actions. God told the children of Israel "you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you". Remember that verse in Romans 8: 31 "If God be for us, who can be against us." The alternative is, if God is against us it does not mater who is for us. I fear the anger of God far more than any man. And my pride is no match fore His wrath. Consider Philippians 2:1-8:
If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. (KJV)
Paul chose to use the Greek word (tapeinoo-) or humble here to make his point. Now look at the definition Strongs gives to Humble: to make low, to bring low, a) to level, to reduce to a plain
b) metaphorically, to bring into a humble condition, to reduce to lower circumstances 1) to assign a lower rank or place to 2) to abase 3) to be ranked below others who are honored or rewarded 4) to humble or to abase myself by humble living c) to lower, to depress 1) of one's soul bring down one's pride 2) to have a modest opinion of oneself 3) to behave in an unassuming manner 4) devoid of all haughtiness.
Some one once said, "after pride comes the fall", another said, "we have become a proud people". I say we have confused pride and humility with haughtiness. It is utterly unbelievable that God would chose to give me this message just 7 days after He gave me the message of the Crown. I suggest if this has hit home with any of my readers that you might read again the last paragraph of, "My Crown". I have wept over it.
Love
Dad, Dad2, and Chuck
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