Last Thoughts: A Final Blog Post

 

“One of the remarkable things about the gospel is that it is always bringing us down to the lowest point. We must stand in utter humiliation in order for God to minister to us. All human pride must be brought low before Him before we can receive what God wants to give us from His hand.”   (Ray Stedman, commenting on John 13:8)

The struggle with humility is real when it comes to emotional and spiritual growth; yet, it is an essential posture to growing “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

A trap that the modern western church has fallen into over recent years is thinking maturity in faith comes to us without our involvement—that believers believe, and God by His Spirit will take care of the rest. This often unspoken idea denies many of the instructions of the New Testament including picking up our cross daily (Lk. 9:23) and setting the mind on things above (Col 3:1). Our faith is intended to grow and we are to participate in the process.

The apostle Paul certainly believed an embodied intention was involved in living in relationship to Jesus:

“Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed by the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom 12:1-2)

In the next verse Paul tells believers to not “think too highly of themselves.”

As Eugene Peterson paraphrased Romans 1:3, “The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and what He does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.” (The Message)

Anytime we think we have anything good to bring to God we step over into pride. We are unable to receive from his hand. We live like Peter when he at first refused the Lord who stooped to wash his feet. We pull back when it’s time to lean in.

Humility is not easy for us humans.

Abraham, who we know as a man of faith, followed the call of God on his life. He packed his bags and set out to a place God would show him. He followed God’s lead until there came another day when God called him further into his faith journey. This time God took Abraham out into the darkness. He told him to look up.

It was one thing for Abraham to pack his bags and move, it was another thing to feel the impossibility of counting stars and to believe that your life would bless the whole world! Was it not God”s intent to place Abraham under those stars so he could grasp who God was and who he was not? “Your descendants will out number these stars.” Humbly, Abraham believed. He believed!!

Abraham whose humility positioned him to live by faith would soon have his faith tested as the old man stood ready to plunge a sword into his son of promise. 

“Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns.”

The man of faith loosed the ram, took it to the altar and sacrificed it. His faith worked itself out. He took what God had provided and worshipped—using his body, his “spiritual service of worship,” to tie God’s provision to the altar.

Abraham received from God because he positioned himself to be one who could receive from his hand. Abraham trusted God’s love and committed to live in obedience even when he didn’t understand all that God was doing---a true expression of humility.

If you have been reading my blog, you have been with me on a leg in my growth journey. When I started writing here, I didn’t know what I was doing. I posted insights God taught me hoping they would encourage you as I have processed my faith journey. I began sharing because I understood that God had given me the talent to write and the call of a teacher. Blogging seemed a good fit. I realized early on that writing about spiritual things is tricky. Telling personal stories that are spiritual in nature can come across as self-righteous, preachy, or judgmental. I have never intended to do any of those things. My heart has been to exhort, encourage, and to spur on. I hope I’ve done mostly the latter.

Now Google is ending their subscriber email feed and I am ending the blog I first posted to in 2009. I didn’t know about blogging as a platform building media when I first started writing here. I’ve had no intention of building one even though I have written a couple of books that have found their places on my hard drives. They will likely stay there because publishing is a beast and I’m not willing to feed the beast!!!

I want to thank you for being a reader. Some of you I know “in real life.” Some of you I would never have met apart from this medium. I am thankful for you and appreciate so much the love and encouragement you have given to me over the years.

I ended this blog on the subject of spiritual growth and humility because our tested faith is what will hold us as the winds of change blow across this earth. The growth process begins in the soil of humility. All we need is available to us when we are positioned to receive from the Lord’s hand. Living in the fullness of our salvation leads us to the abundance of life promised to us. 

Jesus alone is our center as we stand firm in these last days— no moral laws, nor political stands, not good works or just causes will prove themselves adequate to make us steadfast and immovable. (I Cor. 15:58) In the manner of Abraham, we walk by faith and not by sight fully assured that all is perfectly well in the kingdom of God.

“Therefore since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.” (Heb. 12:28-29)