Plan For Humility
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| This Rise & Shine sent from Ontario, NY - Pic of Chloe's 9th Bday! |
Rise
and Shine for Jesus! \O/
by
Pam Iannello (my late mother)
"Plan For Humility"
How many of you have your
day, maybe even your whole week all planned out? You've gone over the details of the day/days
in your mind and organized your activities in a decent and proper order so that
all can be accomplished, the things that you both desire and need to do. Afterwards, you sigh a sigh of relief for
having figured things out for yourself, and then you proceed to live out your
schedule with confidence that all will be well.
At this point, if you were to sit down to read your Bible and you came
across Proverbs 27:1, which I've included below,
how
do you think it would settle with you?
Would it change your thinking about
your plans and activities? If so,
how?
"Boast
not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth."
You may not realize this, but when we go
about our days with an attitude of confident expectation that all will fall
into place, resting in our ability to arrange things so as to see our own end
achieved, we are actually boasting! Why
does God say we shouldn't we boast about tomorrow? The answer is in the very same verse - for we
know NOT what a day may bring forth! As
human beings, we are ignorant of the future, no matter how scheduled and
planned out we are, amen? Just one day
can change the rest of your life....
Some day, something will come into your life that you did not plan or
schedule for yourself, or your loved ones
- but God both planned and scheduled it for you, for He is in charge of all
our days! The future belongs to the
Lord, it is not ours to know.
Deuteronomy
29:29, "The secret things BELONG UNTO THE LORD our God..."
James
4:14a, "Whereas YE KNOW NOT what shall be on the morrow."
Ecclesiastes
10:14, "A fool also is full of words:
a man cannot tell what
shall be; and what shall be after him, who can tell him?" There are many different things that people
boast about during their lifetime. What
sort of things do you find yourself boasting about - your financial security,
your educational background, your kids behavior and your child rearing
abilities, your health, your relationship with the Lord, your personal
accomplishments? No doubt the list of
topics is endless... But what do you
think causes us to boast? What does boasting reveal
about man? Read the verse below in Psalm
10:6 and see if you can come
up with the answer...
"He
hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved:
for I shall never be in
adversity." Ladies, as we go about
boasting ourselves of tomorrow, we are giving vocal expression to our own
indwelling pride! We are depending upon
ourselves alone and living in nothing more than carnal security, while
deceiving ourselves into thinking that we will escape from common ills because
WE are in control. God is not in all our
thoughts, only our heart's desires are!
As we are lured by pride into living independently of the Lord, we fill
our hearts and lives with our own arrogance rather than with the presence of
God! You see, the proud person depends
on himself rather than on God, and this cuts him off from the Lord’s guiding
influences over his life. Beware ladies,
that you don't let pride in your achievements cut you off from your heavenly
Father... When God’s presence
is welcome, there is no room for pride, because He makes us aware
of our true self - and silences all our
boastings! Obadiah 3, "The pride
of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest
in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in
his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground?" Through our boastings, pride undermines our
faith in God. By never fully placing our
trust in the Lord, but depending only upon ourselves, we lose
the
opportunity to know and believe with true confidence what Romans 8:28 says:
"And
WE KNOW that all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are the called according to his purpose." It's not the Lord's ability we are trusting
in to work all things together for our good,
it's our ability! We prefer to
work things out for
ourselves, "Thank you very much anyway, Lord, but I'll take care of it!" Isn't that what your boastings have
proven? James
4:16, "But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil." As we go about boasting of our future plans,
we are foolishly ignoring God's sovereignty over our lives, and such an
attitude, the Bible says, is evil! Our
prideful boastings prove our own wickedness, for we overlook our own capability
of failure, resting in our own potential
rather than in God's! We have
deceitfully omitted our own weaknesses from
the picture and made ourselves God!!
Hence, we see the evil fruit in
our boastings, amen?? That's not as
far as our prides takes us either ladies!
Omitting our own weaknesses from the picture leads to
self-righteousness, and not only do we cut ourselves off from God, but we also
cut ourselves off from others!
Self-righteousness is dangerous because it leads a person to despise
others for their shortcomings, and prevents him or her from learning anything
from God. We become haughty and
unteachable and hardened to the truth about our own sin, thereby distorting our
view of ourselves and others. How many
of you ladies in your inward boastings of your spiritual accomplishments or
even physical accomplishments, have in the process developed a prideful
attitude toward your husbands and cut yourself off from him as a result?? Do you see the danger in self righteousness
now? It is rooted in pride and fed by
your boastings...and the outcome is evil!
Christians ought not to become boastful in their
spiritual
accomplishments, whether husband or wife, or brothers and sisters
in the Lord.... Ephesians 2:4-9,
"But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us TOGETHER with Christ, (by
grace are ye saved;) And hath raised us up TOGETHER, and made us sit in
heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in
the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his
kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
For by grace are ye saved through
faith; and that not of yourselves: it is
the gift of God: Not of
works lest any man should boast."
You see ladies, in light of this portion of scripture, we see that Jews
and Gentiles alike could be guilty of spiritual pride - Jews for thinking their
faith and traditions elevated them above everyone else, Gentiles for trusting
in their achievements, power, or position. But spiritual pride blinds us to our
own faults and magnifies the faults of others.
Be careful not to become so proud of your salvation and spiritual
accomplishments that you shut others out!
Instead, humbly thank God for what HE has done in and through you, and
encourage others who might be struggling
in their faith. God has set up salvation
in a way that would put
an end to our spiritual boastings, not stir them up!
Today, won't you honestly search your heart
before God and see if you haven't been guilty of boastful living? Have you been living your life independent of
the Lord and His plans for you? Are you
determined to see YOUR schedule through in spite of what path the Lord has
directed you to take each day? Do you
become upset when your plans are thwarted?
Have your inward boastings led you to become a critical, judgemental
person of others? Are you finding that
you spend more time focusing on the flaws of others while overlooking your own
imperfections, proving that self righteousness has filled your heart? Have your prideful boastings cut you off from
enjoying healthy, happy relationships with those you love, even with church
family members? It's true that we cannot
know what tomorrow holds, and that we should not foolishly boast ourselves of
it, but we can at least plan on being humbly dependent upon the Lord each and every
day, amen? Now THAT is certainly
something the Lord would have us
fit
into our schedules!
God
Bless,
Pam
Isaiah
60:1&2
Copyright 2000 Pamela A.
Iannello
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