My Unusual Journal
My Unusual Journal 40 - Monday, October 10, 2011, 1:11 PM
We Have Every Right to Be Lowly
We find it difficult at times to be humble, but if we would be honest about our origins, what we have not accomplished unaided and how we failed to lift ourselves out of the cesspool of sin – again unaided – being truly lowly should be a piece of cake. What is it we have that we were not given? From the richest to the poorest, from the most intelligent to the most mentally challenged among us, we brought nothing to the table of life that was not dealt to us. We would not even have life if God had not touched us and breathed into us the breath or spirit of life, changing us from inanimate lumps of clay into living souls fit to do the will of God. And of course, if we want to poke into the matter further and be further humiliated, it is evident the inanimate lumps of clay that we originally were, had to be created by God. We are absolutely nothing of ourselves.
We have to remind ourselves again and again that there is nothing, nothing we have that was not given to us. Notwithstanding that cogent argument for being lowly, it is in our genes to be proud and to boast – but of what? All things, including life itself were given to us from God. Even Moses the great leader of God’s people forgot himself on one occasion and shouted in exasperation to the complaining Israelites, “Hear now, ye rebels; must we [and who did he mean by ‘we’?] fetch you water out of this rock?” and he angrily smote the rock that God had told him only to speak to. This was rebellion on Moses’ part and for that “small” lapse of integrity he was denied the honor of leading God’s people into the Land of Canaan.
Paul the fearless apostle to the Gentiles often spoke of himself in humble terms as being the “chief of sinners” (1 Tim. 1.15) and “the least of all saints” (Eph. 3.8), but if you read his epistles closely, you can detect a proud man who deliberately kept himself in subjection to the Word he preached and taught. He taught others to be lowly and so he kept himself lowly.
We no doubt have this treasure, this life, in fragile earthen vessels that the glory might be of God and not of ourselves. (2 Cor. 4.7) There would be no Einstein, no Galileo, no Newton among us if it were not for the Great Creator. There would be no towering biblical figures such as Abraham, no Moses, no Paul arising above the mediocrity around them without the great Primal Cause to bring them into existence and give them their special talents.
Where does this leave all our "self-made" boasting? What I am saying here is Truth and Truth thoroughly trashes any claims we make of greatness. There is only one Great Person in all existence and He is God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Jesus Christ. We are less than nothing.
No one has the right to think highly of himself; there is nothing we have accomplished and no traits we have that we willed into being. If we belong to God, whatever we have of good and whatever we have done that is meritorious are the direct result of the Spirit of God living and motivating us within.
Get down off your pedestal! Without God you are less than nothing.
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