Are You Your Favorite Subject?

by Daryl Wingerd - Pastor Christ Fellowship of Kansas City (click here for more info about Daryl)

In a popular song, the singer goes on and on about how much he likes to talk about another person. But then the main point of the song comes when he says emphatically, "I wanna talk about me!" We laugh, but this song reveals something that we should all think about. The truth is, some of us like to talk about ourselves all the time!

We all know someone like this—the person who always has the "bigger fish" story on the tip of his tongue. The accident he saw was more shocking than the one you saw. The injustice she experienced was worse than your experience of injustice. The funniest things their children do are funnier than what your children do. In short, whatever the topic of conversation, it always seems to turn around and focus on them.

Most of us have acted this way at one time or another, and we have probably annoyed others in the process. But I must also admit that this sort of communicative one-upmanship is not always bad. There are times when the sharing of like experiences is helpful, informative, or really, really funny, even if your "fish" happens to be bigger than everyone else's. Then there are times when speaking about yourself is thoughtless, self-centered, and rude.

For example, perhaps someone you know has experienced a tragic loss. In the midst of her grief, when you should be consoling her with your presence, weeping with her in silence, you find yourself saying, "I know how you feel. When such and such happened to me. . . ." For the next ten minutes, the person who should be the focus of your attention is forced to focus her attention politely on you.

The Bible tells us that there is "a time to be silent and a time to speak" (Ecclesiastes 3:7). I have given one example of a time when silence would be preferable, and we can all think of many others. In fact, James seems to say that we should lean toward silence—"everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak . . ." (James 1:19). Now it is true that God gave us lungs, tongues, and vocal cords for a reason. Verbal communication is a necessary part of life. The question is, when should we speak up about ourselves?

* Unlike the poor timing illustrated in the above scenario, there are times when it is helpful to identify with another person's pain by letting them know you have gone through similar pain.

* It is often helpful to illustrate solutions to another person's problem by sharing how you dealt with a similar problem.

* It is often helpful to admit personal failures in order to reassure the one listening that you understand his or her struggles.

* It is often helpful to share experiences in evangelism in order to encourage others to imitate you. You are not bragging when you credit God with your knowledge and boldness.

* It is often helpful to share your personal testimony of how God saved you. The Apostle Paul shared his testimony three times in Scripture.

But still, there is a need for balance—for your sake and the sake of others. If you are one who talks about yourself too much, in thoughtless and self-centered ways, it is like having a piece of food stuck in your teeth. You can't see it until you look in the mirror, but by then, everyone else knows it's there. If you suspect that you might have this unsightly distraction in your dealings with others, ask a trusted friend to be your mirror—to tell you honestly if your self-focus is annoying.

In order to become more biblical in your communication skills, try asking yourself the following questions before you speak:

Have I listened long enough to know what to say?
He who gives an answer before he hears, it is folly and shame to him.
(Proverbs 18:13)

But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak. . . . (James 1:19)

Does anything need to be said at all?
When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise. (Prov. 10:19)

Does what I am about to say reveal any sinful self focus?
Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves. (Phil. 2:3)

Will my words be of spiritual profit to those who hear?
Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. (Eph. 4:29)

Copyright © 2010 Daryl Wingerd. Permission granted for reproduction in exact form. All other uses require writen permission. Find more free articles at www.BulletinInserts.org, a ministry of Christian Communicators Worldwide: www.CCWtoday.org.
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Humility in the Teaching of Jesus

by Andrew Murray

“Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart.”—Matthew 11:29

“Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant, even as the Son of Man came to serve.”—Matthew 20:20

We have seen the humility in the life of Christ, as He laid open His heart to us: let us listen to His teaching. There we shall hear how He speaks of it, and how far He expects men, and specially His disciples, to be humble as He was. Let us carefully study the passages, which I can scarce do more than quote, to receive the full impression of how often and how earnestly He taught it: it may help us to realize what He asks of us.

1. Look at the commencement of His ministry. In the Beatitudes with which the Sermon on the Mount opens, He speaks: “Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.” The very first words of His proclamation of the kingdom of heaven reveal the open gate through which alone we enter. The poor, who have nothing in themselves, to them the kingdom comes. The meek, who seek nothing in themselves, theirs the earth shall be. The blessings of heaven and earth are for the lowly. For the heavenly and the earthly life, humility is the secret of blessing.

2. “Learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest for your souls.” Jesus offers Himself as Teacher. He tells us what the spirit both is, which we shall find in Him as Teacher, and which we can learn and receive from Him. Meekness and lowliness is the one thing He offers us; in it we shall find perfect rest of soul. Humility is to be our salvation.

3. The disciples had been disputing who would be the greatest in the kingdom, and had agreed to ask the Master (Luke 9:46; Matt 28:3). He set a child in their midst, and said, “Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, shall be exalted.” “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” The question is indeed a far reaching one. What will be the chief distinction in the heavenly kingdom? The answer, none but Jesus would have given. The chief glory of Heaven, the true heavenly-mindedness, the chief of the graces, is humility. “He that is least among you, the same shall be great.”

4. The sons of Zebedee had asked Jesus to sit on His right and left, the highest place in the kingdom. Jesus said it was not His to give, but the Father’s, who would give it to those for whom it was prepared. They must not look or ask for it. Their thought must be of the cup and the baptism of humiliation. And then He added, “Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant. Even as the Son of Man came to serve.” Humility, as it is the mark of Christ the heavenly, will be the one standard of glory in heaven: the lowliest is the nearest to God. The primacy in the Church is promised to the humblest.

5. Speaking to the multitude and the disciples, of the Pharisees and their love of the chief seats, Christ said once again (Matt 23:11), “He that is greatest among you shall be your servant.” Humiliation is the only ladder to honor in God’s kingdom.

6. On another occasion, in the house of a Pharisee, He spoke the parable of the guest who would be invited to come up higher (Luke 14:1-11), and added, “For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” The demand is inexorable; there is no other way. Self-abasement alone will be exalted.

7. After the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, Christ spake again (Luke 18:14), “Everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” In the temple and presence and worship of God, everything is worthless that is not pervaded by deep, true humility towards God and men.

8. After washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus said (John 13:14), “If I then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.” The authority of command, and example, every thought, either of obedience or conformity, make humility the first and most essential element of discipleship.

9. At the Holy Supper table, the disciples still disputed who should be the greatest (Luke 22:26). Jesus said, “He that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. I am among you as he that serveth.” The path in which Jesus walked, and which He opened up for us, the power and spirit in which He wrought our salvation, and to which He saves us, is ever the humility that makes me the servant of all.

How little this is preached. How little it is practiced. How little the lack of it is felt or confessed. I do not say, how few attain to it, some recognizable measure of likeness to Jesus in His humility. But how few ever think of making it a distinct object of continual desire or prayer. How little the world has seen it. How little has it been seen even in the inner circle of the Church.

“Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.” Would God that it might be given us to believe that Jesus means this! We all know what the character of a faithful servant or slave implies. Devotion to the master’s interest, thoughtful study and care to please him, delight in his prosperity and honor and happiness. There are servants on earth in whom these dispositions have been seen, and to whom the name of servant has never been anything but a glory. To how many of us has it not been a new joy in the Christian life to know that we may yield ourselves as servants, as slaves to God, and to find that His service is our highest liberty,—the liberty from sin and self? We need now to learn another lesson,—that Jesus calls us to be servants of one another, and that, as we accept it heartily, this service too will be a most blessed one, a new and fuller liberty too from sin and self. At first it may appear hard; this is only because of the pride which still counts itself something. If once we learn that to be nothing before God is the glory of the creature, the spirit of Jesus, the joy of heaven, we shall welcome with our whole heart the discipline we may have in serving even those who try to vex us. When our own heart is set upon this, the true sanctification, we shall study each word of Jesus on self-abasement with new zest, and no place will be too low, and no stooping too deep, and no service too mean or too long continued, if we may but share and prove the fellowship with Him who spake, “I am among you as he that serveth.”

Brethren, here is the path to the higher life. Down, lower down! This was what Jesus ever said to the disciples who were thinking of being great in the kingdom, and of sitting on His right hand and His left. Seek not, ask not for exaltation; that is God’s work. Look to it that you abase and humble yourselves, and take no place before God or man but that of servant; that is your work; let that be your one purpose and prayer. God is faithful. Just as water ever seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds the creature abased and empty, His glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless. He that humbleth himself—that must be our one care—shall be exalted; that is God’s care; by His mighty power and in His great love He will do it.

Men sometimes speak as if humility and meekness would rob us of what is noble and bold and manlike. Oh, that all would believe that this is the nobility of the kingdom of heaven, that this is the royal spirit that the King of heaven displayed, that this is God-like, to humble oneself, to become the servant of all! This is the path to gladness and the glory of Christ’s presence ever in us, His power ever resting on us.

Jesus, the meek and lowly One, calls us to learn of Him the path to God. Let us study the words we have been reading, until our heart is filled with the thought: My one need is humility. And let us believe that what He shows, He gives; what He is, He imparts. As the meek and lowly One, He will come in and dwell in the longing heart.

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Holiness and Humility

By Andrew Murray

“Stand by thyself...for I am holier than thou”—Isaiah 65:5

WE HEAR a great deal of seekers after holiness and professors of holiness, of holiness teaching and holiness meetings. The great test of whether the holiness we profess to seek or to attain is truth and life will be whether it be manifest in the increasing humility it produces. In the creature, humility is the one thing needed to allow God's holiness to dwell in him and shine through him. In Jesus, the Holy One of God who makes us holy, a divine humility was the secret of His life and His death and His exaltation; the one infallible test of our holiness will be the humility before God and men which marks us. Humility is the bloom and the beauty of holiness.

The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is its lack of humility. Every seeker after holiness needs to be on his guard, lest unconsciously what has begun in the Spirit be perfected in the flesh, and pride creep in where its presence is least expected.

Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one a Pharisee, the other a publican. There is no place or position so sacred but the Pharisee can enter there. Pride can lift up its head in the very temple of God, and make His worship the scene of its self-exaltation. Since the time Christ so exposed his pride, the Pharisee has put on the garb of the publican, and the confessor of deep sinfulness equally with the professor of the highest holiness, must be on the watch. Just when we are most anxious to have our heart the temple of God, we shall find two men coming up to pray. And the publican will find that his danger is not from the Pharisee beside him, who despises him, but the Pharisee within who commends and exalts. In God's temple, when we think we are holiest of all, in the presence of His holiness, let us beware of pride. “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them” (Job 1:6).

“God, I thank Thee, I am not as the rest of men, or even as this publican.” It is in that which is just cause for thanksgiving, it is in the very thanksgiving which we render to God, it may be in the very confession that God has done it all, that self finds its cause of complacency. Yes, even when in the temple where the language of penitence and trust in God's mercy alone is heard, the Pharisee may take up the note of praise, and in thanking God be congratulating himself. Pride can clothe itself in the garments of praise or of penitence. Even though the words, “I am not as the rest of men,” are rejected and condemned, their spirit may too often be found in our feelings and language towards our fellow worshipers and fellow men.

Would you know if this really is so, just listen to the way in which churches and Christians often speak of one another. How little of the meekness and gentleness of Jesus is to be seen. It is so little remembered that deep humility must be the key-note of what the servants of Jesus say of themselves or each other. Is there not many a church or assembly of saints, many a mission or convention, many a society or committee, even many a mission away in heathendom, where the harmony has been disturbed and the work of God hindered, because men who are counted saints have proved in touchiness, haste and impatience, in self-defense and self-assertion, in sharp judgments and unkind words, that they did not each reckon others better than themselves, and that their holiness has but little in it of the meekness of the saints? In their spiritual history men may have had times of great humbling and brokenness, but what a different thing this is from being clothed with humility, from having an humble spirit, from having that lowliness of mind in which each counts himself the servant of others, and so shows forth the very mind which was also in Jesus Christ.

“Stand by...for I am holier than thou!” What a parody on holiness! Jesus the Holy One is the humble One: the holiest will ever be the humblest. There is none holy but God: we have as much holiness as we have of God. And according to what we have of God will be our real humility, because humility is nothing but the disappearance of self in the vision that God is All. The holiest will be the humblest. Alas! Though the barefaced, boasting Jew of the days of Isaiah is not often to be found—even our manners have taught us not to speak thus—how often his spirit is still seen, whether in the treatment of fellow saints or of the children of the world. In the spirit in which opinions are given, though the garb be that of the publican, the voice is still that of the Pharisee: “O God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men.”

And is there, then, such humility to be found, that men shall indeed still count themselves “less than the least of all saints,” the servants of all? There is. “ Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, seeketh not its own.” Where the spirit of love is shed abroad in the heart, where the divine nature comes to a full birth, where Christ the meek and lowly Lamb of God is truly formed within, there is given the power of a perfect love that forgets itself and finds its blessedness in blessing others, in bearing with them and honoring them, however feeble they be. Where this love enters, there God enters. And where God has entered in His power, and reveals Himself as All, there the creature becomes nothing. And where the creature becomes nothing, he is humble towards his fellow creatures, and the presence of God becomes not a thing of times and seasons, but the covering under which the soul ever dwells, and its deep abasement before God becomes the holy place of His presence whence all its words and works proceed.

May God teach us that our thoughts, words and feelings concerning our fellow men are His test of our humility towards Him, and that our humility before Him is the only power that can enable us to always be humble with our fellow men. Our humility must be the life of Christ, the Lamb of God, within us.

Let all teachers of holiness, whether in the pulpit or on the platform, and all seekers after holiness, whether in the closet or the convention, take warning. There is no pride so dangerous, because none so subtle and insidious, as the pride of holiness. There grows up, all unconsciously, a hidden habit of soul, which feels complacency in its attainments, and cannot help seeing how far it is in advance of others. It can be recognized, not always in any special self-assertion or self-laudation, but simply in the absence of that deep self-abasement which cannot but be the mark of the soul that has seen the glory of God (Job 42:5,6; Isa 6:5). It reveals itself, not only in words or thoughts, but in a tone, a way of speaking of others, in which those who have the gift of spiritual discernment cannot but recognize the power of self. Even the world with its keen eyes notices it, and points to it as proof that the profession of a heavenly life does not bear any special heavenly fruits.

O brethren! Let us beware. Unless we make the increase of humility our study, we may find that the only sure mark of the presence of God, the disappearance of self, was all the time wanting. Come and let us flee to Jesus, and hide ourselves in Him until we be clothed upon with His humility. That alone is our holiness.

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