Pride is utter poverty of soul disguised as riches,
imaginary light where in fact there is darkness.
– John Climacus (570-649)
Author: Brian
Follower of Jesus, Husband, Dad, Grandpa, and Pastor
Consider Our Smallness Before God
Back in July, I wrote a post on growing in humility. In it, I looked at two general principles for growing in humility: renewing our minds with Biblical truth and training ourselves for godliness. My plan was to then begin a weekly look at some specific applications of those two principles. Needless to say, between a busy July and my blogging break in August, I never got back to it. So now finally, here we go:
O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
and the son of man that you care for him?
– Psalm 8:1, 3-4 (ESV)
To grow in humility, we need to consider our smallness before God. He is big, majestic, full of glory. We are small even in comparison to the heavens, let alone God. He is the Creator; we are the creatures. There are billions of people scattered around the world – and God made every one. He is big. We are small. This is a truth that humbles us.
So let’s train ourselves in this truth by going outside. Look at the stars. Watch a sunset. Sit on the beach and watch the crashing waves. Observe creation and wonder at our Creator. Many of us spend so much time indoors where everything is made by people, and arranged around us. No wonder we struggle with pride. But go outside where everything is made and arranged by God for his glory, and we’ll see how small we really are. This is a practice that can humble us.
Go outside and consider our smallness before God – and so grow in humility.
Family Focus
Here are some good posts to ponder on marriage:
8 Bullet Points on Marriage – Tim Challies
Marriage Defined – Borrowed Light
6 Deadly Enemies of Marriage – Tim Challies
Prayer Quote of the Week
Whenever God determines to do a great thing,
He first sets his people to pray.
– Charles Spurgeon
All We Really Need To Know
The fact is, of course, that the New Testament never promises anyone a life of psychological wholeness or offers a guarantee of the consumer’s satisfaction with Christ. To the contrary, it offers the prospect of indignities, loss, damage, disease, and pain. The faithful in Scripture were scorned, beaten, imprisoned, shipwrecked, and executed. The gospel offers no promise that contemporary believers will be spared these experiences, that they will be able to settle down to the sanitized comfort of an inner life freed of stresses, pains, and ambiguities; it simply promises that through Christ, God will walk with us in all the dark places of life, that he has the power and the will to invest his promises with reality, and that even the shadows are made to serve his glory and our best interests. A therapeutic culture will be inclined to view such promises as something of a disappointment; those who understand that reality is at heart moral because God is centrally holy will be satisfied that this is all they really need to know.
– David Wells in God in the Wasteland
Sermon Songs: Isaiah 27
A living hope of great freedom
From evil and all sin
Pardon from sin for all who come
In hope of salvation
A living hope of belonging
To God who cares for me
With joyful hearts to Him we’ll sing
For all eternity
– From a sermon on Isaiah 27
(To the tune of “Amazing Grace”)
Full of Grace and Truth
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory,
glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
– John 1:14 (ESV)
Jesus was full of grace and truth, but we tend to lean in one direction or another.
We may lean toward a graceless truth: We look with disgust at sinners. We are quick to condemn someone who fails to live up to the truth – we become the judge, jury, and executioner. Somehow we lose sight of our own failure to live out the truth, our own need of grace.
Or we may lean toward a truthless grace. We treat sin as if it were no big deal. We are quick to excuse sin. It doesn’t matter what anyone does. We easily compromise truth in the name of freedom. Somehow we lose sight of God’s commands, and his expectation of obedience.
But Jesus was full of grace and truth. He confronts our graceless truth and our truthless grace. He graciously reaches out to sinners with forgiveness, even as he calls them to live out the truth.
The world doesn’t need our self-righteous condemnation nor our irrelevant affirmation.
The world needs grace and truth. The world needs Jesus. Just like us.
Declaring the Glory
Tahquamenon Falls in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
– Psalm 19:1
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature,
have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,
in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
– Romans 1:20
Blog Break
Forgot to post this Friday. I am now on my annual August break from blogging. Hope to see you again at the end of the month!
Declaring the Glory
Mosquito Falls in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
– Psalm 19:1
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature,
have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world,
in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
– Romans 1:20
Brian J. Mikul 