I just got back from the morning service. Pastor Peter's message was great. Lots of things were lining up and good things were happening. I definitely can't talk about it all right now, I've got to put some studying time in and read the passages he mentioned in their entirety, but I did want to write one thing down.
Towards the end of the service, the issue of humility came up and it definition always brings to my mind a fine line. It's a difficult thing to know, to tread, and basically to apply humility to our walk. He mentioned that humility in our hearts puts us in position (all about positions) to know Christ and to go after wisdom like we've been studying in Proverbs 2. Then he said something really cool. He said that as soon as we move that humility to our minds we lose it. I think thats so true.
When we try to bring humility and its gifts of wisdom and knowledge to our minds, we face great risks. Humility is always only a stone's throw from pride, and as Pastor often reminds us, false humility is nothing but pride. Purely, and at the same time not pure at all, pride. Pride goes after those gifts we receive in humility. Wisdom and knowledge can easily turn. We can fall back to thinking about how much we know and not what has merely been revealed to us. That's when a hunger for knowledge for knowledge's sake is built in us. We're called to be hungry for the knowledge from and of the things of God. Nothing else leads to wisdom. It can't. You could be in the horrible position of thinking you know everything, when in reality you know nothing of worth. This is something I struggle with. There's so much I want to know about and do, but I really have to pull back and ask God to focus my path. What would be the point of learning something that I wouldn't put back into the things of God. Like when we store up too many earthly things, the end of our lives would show nothing but pointless quests for empty wisdom, earthly knowledge, and really, for intellectual bragging rights. Triviality. We need more than that. We can't be built up by anything without Him being active in our choices.
Our belief system, our faith walks, need to be positioned evenly. We need to know the truth of God by recognizing it in our heart, in our soul, and in our mind. That's how we recognize its fullness, His fullness. They work in tandem, they have to, or we'll fail and fall (like on that faith bicycle). We need to step it up. We need to focus. We need to get in the right position. To do that we need to seek the things of God. We need to ask. We need to pray. We need to praise. Then, we need to work. We need to work harder then we have ever worked before. For our faith. For the people around us. For the Kingdom. There is nothing of greater value, actually there is nothing of value at all, to be had without making this choice. Live for Him today. Chose to live for Him EVERY SINGLE DAY. Declare it, or it's worthless. Be all or nothing for Christ. Be wholly for Him. Love Him as we are called to:
Matthew 22:37
"And He said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.'"
--> Wow. Do you know what's the craziest part of this verse? He loves us the same way. The entire Bible is Him loving us! With everything good. God is everything good.
Deuteronomy 6:5
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might."
--> I love this verse. I love that it includes might. I love that the word might isn't maybe (the way we use it today). It means everything. With strength. We choose Him. We fight against our flesh and we choose Him. There are no maybes in such a decision. It's a declaration. With absolutely every stitch of ourselves that we can gather together, we push aside our muck and out our junk, and love God. We live for Him. We live not for a dying world, but for Him.
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