Transformation

P 2112 Humility positions us for transformation.

/ DVH

The bible says:  “Humble yourselves…”(1 Peter 5:6)  Well, that was easy, the Lord clearly tells us to humble ourselves. But, to be honest with you, it can be hard to see things like pride and control. However, it is clear that He wants us to act like Christ did. Christ humbled HIMSELF – He always took the lowest seat. (Philippians 2:8.) Sometimes we are so busy trying to feel good about ourselves, we forget about other people. One of the hardest things I have had to learn is that other people in this world do not OWE me anything, simply because my life was hard at the beginning.

Pride can easily remain hidden, perhaps we don’t always know we have it! Ask someone close to you, what they think about you on this subject. Hmmm… if that solution seems like a VERY bad idea, then there could definitely be pride somewhere. Pride often has to be right. I have observed that sometimes behind pride is the desire for a certain outcome – the feeling that I know more than you do, so I should be in charge. And that sometimes comes from a fear of everything being out of control. 

One of the biggest dangers we face in Christianity is that we find fault in others very quickly. Other people might call that good judgment, but I call it distraction. EG: “If you are to blame then I am OK.” True humility looks at itself first. Most Christians know enough to have the appearance of humility, but the Lord looks at our hearts. Unfortunately we can also easily rationalise things instead of acknowledging them and dealing with them, together with any underlying causes. Here’s a neat trick I’ve learnt, if I can see it in others, then I am probably doing the same thing myself. I’ve learnt to deal with myself first. Logs and specks!

I exhort everyone reading here to learn to be utterly truthful about who they are and where they are spiritually. Because of what Jesus did for us, we don’t have to be afraid of our faults. Our real problem might easily be our lack in faith in what He already did. However, His punishment on our behalf does not give us permission to stay that way. Fudging the truth is fooling yourself. First we need to own up, and then we must make it clear to the Lord that even though we really don’t want to do what He wants us to do about that stinky stuff in the corners of our minds… we will do it anyway… just because HE asked us to.  (Matthew 21:29-31) Ask Him for His help – He knows the way through anything. 

Then, confess your fault to someone else. BTW, I am not talking about telling someone else that we’ve always hated Brother Bob or our mother, brother auntie etc because they drive us crazy. How can info like that “be good, right and profitable?” That kind of sin is ours not theirs. When people annoy us or step on our feet on way or another, that means that we have been given an opportunity to pray and ask the Lord to show us what is going on. Perhaps we need to go to someone we trust and tell them about our issues – and confess our fault that way. At the same time we need to start blessing the person that we don’t like … Yeah! … I know! YOU don’t hate anyone!!  Me neither. 😂 We just use words like ‘irritate, and annoy’ instead … it sounds soooo much nicer. 

Serving others is a way to humble yourself. Especially if you serve the person who is provoking you. Some people are a gift. There is nothing that will show us more plainly what is actually in our heart, than blessing someone we don’t like! It sorts out dislike from just plain hatred and spite, plus it throws all the excuses in the bin … where they belong. We all sin and there are no bigger sins or smaller ones. Anything that offends the holiness of our God is sin. We need to remind ourselves that pride will keep us from humility and transformation.

“Why, the very fact of your having lawsuits with one another at all is a defect (a defeat, an evidence of positive moral loss for you). Why not rather let yourselves suffer wrong and be deprived of what is your due? Why not rather be cheated (defrauded and robbed)?” 1 Corinthians 6:7. This verse, and many MANY others clearly show us what the Lord wants. He suffered wrong and He was totally perfect in all His ways, so why should we be an exception? If you find that you are making excuses for yourself and the way you relate to other people, especially those close to you – all the time – then you’ve misplaced humility and probably have a deeper issue. We follow the Lord Jesus now, and we all know that His road leads to the cross … That means when we follow Him we destined to end up dead!

It is extremely humbling to stand still in the light of Who He is, and see who you really are, and question your own thoughts about yourself. “But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” John 3:21 NIV. He knows our hearts. We can pray: “Wash me, cleanse me, make me new” until we are purple. However, unless we personally do something about it – like humbling ourselves, admitting our faults, confessing our inadequacies to others, we are fooling ourselves.

The only person who is responsible for the way I think and act is ME. Pride prevents us from growing, BUT, Humility positions us for transformation. 👋🏻

P 2109 Transformation is the way ahead.

/ DVH

I had an interesting thought this morning about – 2 Corinthians 12:9 says: “My Grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Gird up your girdle Gertie, it’s gunna be a bumpy ride! So why don’t we share our weaknesses more? Yeah you might like to think on that for a month or nine!! As HE is strong where I am weak – then where’s the shame in being weak? All I gotta do is ask for help and the Holy Spirit is right there. Instantly. I may not feel Him – but I know that He is close to the broken-hearted … so … He is there!!  Then when I pray for help maybe using my faith means I will believe that He wants to help me even more than I want to be helped.

It seems to me that we avoid displaying the very thing that the bible says will empower us with HIS power! We try so hard day after day, to keep the wheels turning, hiding our weaknesses, as well as trying to maintain a sense of normal? When the reality is, we can’t do anything eternal and lasting without Him. Christians all around the world climb out of bed daily and try to present a good picture of the benefits of what we believe, everywhere they go. JESUS IS THE BENEFIT FOLKS. He didn’t come to earth so we could try harder – He came to save us from sin and ourselves! So why are we so scared to death to admit that we can’t hack it on our own? Do we really need to have other people admire us so badly? Does envy lead to saving faith?

Perhaps somebody asks us: “how are you today?” And we paste on a fake smile and reply: “fine thank you, and how are you?”  Christians constantly do their best to present themselves as perfectly adequate people who are coping…. WHY? Why do we lie to ourselves and others? Here’s my little theory. We feel if we don’t present a good picture we will be letting the Lord down. You know, FYI, being officially sick can almost be a relief in one way – because you don’t have to pretend anymore.

Back to my point, are we so scared of judgment? Or feeling inadequate, because we are supposed to be bright shining stars for the Lord? Maybe we are protecting His reputation? Except He made Himself of no reputation for our sake – so that’s kind of a waste of time and energy. I just want to say to anyone reading this today – ‘It really is OK not to cope all the time!  It’s OK to struggle with difficult people and situations. It’s not just OK … it’s actually normal.’ Because ‘without HIM we can do nothing’  We were not designed to be the all-singing all-dancing Jesus ad. He does perfectly well by Himself – He has the Holy Spirit at work all over this earth! We are here to point to the Answer and WE are not the Answer – HE IS.

So here are some quick thoughts I came up with to explain why we hide our faults from each other: a/ we don’t know how to access Grace. b/ We don’t know how to give Grace away! Jesus said in the verse in 2 Corinthians HIS GRACE IS SUFFICIENT. because that is where HIS power is. I think the reason we pretend so much is because we know very little about living by faith. We get Grace by using our faith not trying harder.

Speaking for myself I always thought of people living by faith as missionaries, or really holy special people who chose that lifestyle. Boy was I wrong!  People rarely choose this lifestyle – it usually lands on them – often from a great height! The way you learn to live by faith is to be needy, and if you’ve got no money in a world that uses money – guess what?? You’ve just become needy!! I know people who live this way but they didn’t choose it – it chose them. 

Here’s the true secret to living a happy Christian life.: transformation is not an optional extra – it’s a survival skill! Ya might want to Selah that thought. 

If by any chance, anybody else out there has become tired of pretending to be ‘fine thank you’ – then we are all going to have to let Him use our ugly, difficult circumstances to expose all our inadequacies. Those nasty little things we don’t ever want anybody else to know because then they won’t like us, or – we won’t like us. Or – maybe the Lord won’t like us!  How about instead of hiding them- we admit them. The bible says: “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed….” James 5:16. It doesn’t say hide them under a rock and hope nobody notices. Unconfessed sin leaves us open to enemy attack.

God was good to Jonah and he had his problems. That man was prejudiced and opinionated, not to mention a racist. The Lord was good to Gideon and he needed more proof than a prosecuting attorney. He was good to Job who thought he had it made and didn’t know that everything he had came from the Lord in the first place! He was good to Moses and David who murdered someone. God was good to Elijah who was the super spiritual guy of his day – Elijah ran away and hid. The list goes on. And now …here’s the GREAT NEWS. We can read all about the men and women of God and what He saw as faith, in a wonderful faith chapter in Hebrews 11.  

The Lord praises every single one of these people, and some of them were definitely not perfect – they made huge mistakes. BUT! The Holy Spirit speaks about each of these men and women of faith with great love. Our faults, when they are transformed by living in His Grace, are testimonies to His loving kindness and glory.  We all might want to think on that with the New Year coming up. Bye. 👋🏻