Solomon tells us that “a happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing” (Proverbs 17:22, AMP ). God undoubtedly has a sense of humor; we need only look at some of the animals He created (it’s hard not to smile at the sight of a hippo, a monkey, or a puppy). Or think of some of the married couples you know: don’t you think God was smiling at the wedding as He looked ahead to the interaction of the wildly different personalities that will be living together?Posts Tagged ‘pride’
humility: measured by everyday relationships
Yesterday’s post on Jesus, humility, and relationships anticipated the next step in Andrew Murray’s teaching. Murray moves from his foundation of humility in the life of Jesus to consider how it will be borne out in the life of the believer. He begins with 1 John 4:20: “for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” Murray contends that humility will be seen in relationships with people and not just with God…
Jesus: humility in relationships
I’m seeing that a large part of growing in humility is learning to love people. I started to write “deal with people,” but deal sounds so…unloving. I don’t want to be one who sees others as something to deal with, as if people were obstacles; I want to love people as if they are the most important thing around. And that requires humility, total dependence on and trust in God. As my family will tell you, humility does not come naturally to me, and I know that only with God’s help can I walk consistently in humility and love in my relationships.
Reading Luke 4 today made this all the clearer. Jesus returns to Nazareth, his hometown, and goes to the synagogue on the Sabbath. It suddenly occurred to me: Jesus had history with these people — decades of history…
the fruit of pride
Yesterday, I wrote about the start of Andrew Murray’s book Humility and the tremendous blessing that humility brings. Murray states that humility is “being clothed with the very beauty and blessedness of Jesus.” Having offered this enticement, he moves in the second chapter to graphically describe the fruit of pride.
As Murray sees it, we will either walk in pride because we are bearing the fruit of sin, or we will walk in humility because we are bearing the fruit of Jesus Christ living in us. Adam and Eve walked in humility — total dependence on God — until they believed the lie of Satan and allowed pride in. Murray writes that the life that came from Adam and Eve
some thoughts on being righteous
I was rather embarrassed the other day when I realized that it had been quite some time since I had simply read the Bible instead of a book about the Bible. So, I’m going to read the Psalms for a while.
Psalm 1 has a wonderful promise for the righteous man or woman:
He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers. (v. 3)…
Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Subscribe to this feed