Contemplation #25
Humility and the Affairs of Others
Our human nature leads us to an inordinate interest in the lives of others. This curiosity is not the way we express love for our neighbors, but a prideful desire to know everyone else’s affairs, and often to assume we have the knowledge to evaluate their life, actions, and motives. This interest in the life of another is not godly, but prying, invasive, and ultimately hurtful both ourselves and others.
Humility teaches us to look only on our own sinfulness, to confess that to God, and to abstain from inquiry into the lives of others. When humility keeps us focused on our own desperate need for the forgiveness of grace, and strength of God’s power, and the reformation of our selves into the image of Jesus, we will then be prepared to love our neighbors while letting God be their Master.
Contemplation #26
Humility and Living in Harmony
When each considers others better than himself, each seeks to be the Christ-imitating servant of all others. What is it that often threatens our relationships? Is it not competition? Is it not how we seek the places of prominence and the satisfaction of our own desires? But this is not the humble way of Christ.
The body of Christ is a community that becomes what God intends through selflessness, and this cannot be manufactured by determination or instruction. Concern for others must be the genuine fruit of humility. No one will be able to live considering others more worthy than himself because he was told to do so. For secretly in his heart he will still think himself worthy, though he may try to outwardly act otherwise. Humility will lead to genuine and unforced service, and through that, to the community of the body of Christ.
Contemplation #27
Humility and Love
To love is to treat another as one would treat oneself. In doing this, one loses oneself. There is no longer a distinction between “self” and others when we love our neighbors as ourselves. To love as God is to die to love of oneself, because it means giving that same care and concern to all others.
What hope is there of embracing God’s love and expressing it to all others without having humility? The proud cannot love their neighbors as themselves, because they must be first. The proud can only love others less than themselves, for loving others as themselves is contrary to their pride. Only the humble can have the love of God. To be Christian is to be humble and to love.
Humility and the Affairs of Others
Our human nature leads us to an inordinate interest in the lives of others. This curiosity is not the way we express love for our neighbors, but a prideful desire to know everyone else’s affairs, and often to assume we have the knowledge to evaluate their life, actions, and motives. This interest in the life of another is not godly, but prying, invasive, and ultimately hurtful both ourselves and others.
Humility teaches us to look only on our own sinfulness, to confess that to God, and to abstain from inquiry into the lives of others. When humility keeps us focused on our own desperate need for the forgiveness of grace, and strength of God’s power, and the reformation of our selves into the image of Jesus, we will then be prepared to love our neighbors while letting God be their Master.
Contemplation #26
Humility and Living in Harmony
When each considers others better than himself, each seeks to be the Christ-imitating servant of all others. What is it that often threatens our relationships? Is it not competition? Is it not how we seek the places of prominence and the satisfaction of our own desires? But this is not the humble way of Christ.
The body of Christ is a community that becomes what God intends through selflessness, and this cannot be manufactured by determination or instruction. Concern for others must be the genuine fruit of humility. No one will be able to live considering others more worthy than himself because he was told to do so. For secretly in his heart he will still think himself worthy, though he may try to outwardly act otherwise. Humility will lead to genuine and unforced service, and through that, to the community of the body of Christ.
Contemplation #27
Humility and Love
To love is to treat another as one would treat oneself. In doing this, one loses oneself. There is no longer a distinction between “self” and others when we love our neighbors as ourselves. To love as God is to die to love of oneself, because it means giving that same care and concern to all others.
What hope is there of embracing God’s love and expressing it to all others without having humility? The proud cannot love their neighbors as themselves, because they must be first. The proud can only love others less than themselves, for loving others as themselves is contrary to their pride. Only the humble can have the love of God. To be Christian is to be humble and to love.
posted by Greg at 12:37 PM
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