Perilous times will come! Paul told of how in the last days, perilous times would come. When he described these times, he did not tell us of wars or terrorism, but rather of the selfishness that would prevail in society. The first thing on his list of perils was that men would be lovers of themselves! How right-on he was! Although we read this scripture and it seems to describe the world around us, when we look a little deeper, it seems that he indicates that these attitudes will be in the church, for he says that they will have a form of godliness, but will deny the power thereof! 1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 Without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4 Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. (II Timothy 3:1-5) The world does not love God, yet he said that men would love pleasures more than they love God (verse 4). I think that he is giving us a description of the prevailing attitudes that will be in much of the church in the last days! I am not so foolish as to think that there will not be a remnant of people in the church when Jesus returns that will have fervent love for God and for one another. When Paul spoke of these times and of those who would be like this, he said, “…from such turn away!” So there will be many like this, and we should withdraw from such, but there will no doubt be those who live in the love of God and do not practice these attitudes or lifestyle. If you haven’t already learned, these days, if you are in the ministry, you had better not make even one minor mistake! If you do, people will chop you off! They will dump you in a heartbeat, especially when you are trying to get something new started. Believe me, there is no margin for error! If you are to be successful in the ministry, you will need to develop some tough skin and don’t wear your feelings on your shoulders, because people will knock them off! I have had mine knocked off a few times! Honor and Humility Some leaders only want to take. They want to capitalize on the successes and failures of others for their own gain. They want to take the place that God has prepared for someone else. They would not have to do this if they would realize that God has a special place for them and that if they would trust Him, He would bring them into their own place of ministry. The place that God prepares for us is a place of special blessing! It is true that we have to be respected in the eyes of the ones that we are trying to minister to, otherwise they will not be able to receive from the Lord through us. At the point where we lose respect in the eyes of those to whom we are ministering, they stop receiving from us. It is also true that before honor is humility. If we want to be honored, we must learn to give honor. If we want favor we must show favor. If we want to be given to, we must be givers. People will give us respect when they have respect for us. People lose respect when they begin to see our character flaws (and we all have some because we are still human). Some have more than others, but hopefully, we are all trying to change and to improve our lives. The Bible says that ministry is designed to “perfect the saints for the work of the ministry.” Show me a leader who has blatant flaws in his character, and I will show you someone who has not submitted themselves to the ministry of other leaders! Perhaps that is the worst part of being the person who has to be “Number One”. They may have a measure of success and get out in front of their peers and think that they do not need to listen to anyone, but they don’t realize that God may be trying to rein them in so He can make them more effective in their ministry. We grow and change when we are willing to receive from the ministry of others. Remember Peter. It seems like he always kept his foot in his mouth! God was not against Peter, but there were things in his personality that needed to change so that God could use him to the degree that He wanted to use him. God worked on him and eventually used him in powerful ways, but there is always room for improvement. When we think that there is not, then we are deceived. Years after the initial days of glory that we read about in the first few chapters of the book of Acts, we read in Galatians of how Paul rebuked Peter because he was compromising in the way he was living, depending upon whether he was dealing with the Jews or the Gentiles. True and False Humility We all know that we need to be humble! There are many who are proud of their humility! I think that it would be much easier to walk in humility if we understood what it is and what it is not. I do not have all the answers, but I do have some good ideas that are worthy of consideration and thought along these lines. First of all, I always like to look at Jesus, because He is our example and the standard by which we should judge every issue. He would fail the test of humility if we judged the way He conducted Himself by the prevailing understanding of humility in the body of Christ today. It seems that much of the requirement to be “humble” today is to be passive. Jesus was anything but passive! In His own home church He stood up, read the scripture, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord” and then began to preach, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears!” (Luke 4:18) It made those people so mad that they led Him out of the city and they wanted to throw Him over a cliff! Obviously, in their minds, He was not being humble! He had placed Himself in the scriptures and said in essence, “This scripture applies to me!” He started to preach a message of faith and power so that He could heal all their sick, and they cut it short! They did not want to hear it! There are events that took place in His ministry over and over again where He would fail the test of humility if we judged them by the modern version of what it means to be humble. He did not mind attracting attention to Himself any time a person needed to be healed or have a demon cast out of them. He did not mind performing a miracle right in the middle of a quiet synagogue service! He would stand in the face of a storm when the lives of His friends were in danger and take command of the situation. He destroyed a funeral procession one day because He had compassion on a mother who had lost her child. He had the audacity to stop the proceedings and raise the boy from the dead! He was so zealous for the things of God that He went into the temple one day, turned over all the tables of the money changers and then took a whip and drove them all out of the temple! Think about it! Women were screaming, kids were running; money was flying! It was total pandemonium! By our standards, that is not being humble! So what does it mean to be humble? There is obviously a true humility and a false humility. There is a true holiness and obviously a false holiness. We want to learn what the true and genuine is so that we can walk in the real thing! There used to be a song that said, “Things get a little easier, once you understand!” Paul said in Philippians, Chapter 2 that Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient unto death. 1 If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, 2 Fulfill my joy, that you be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. 3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. 4 Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. 5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: (Philippians 2:1-9) We all seem to focus on the part of this scripture which says He “made himself of no reputation, and took upon himself the form of a servant...” but we pay no attention to the part which says, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who thought it not robbery to be equal with God”! When Jesus came to earth and began His ministry, He did not go around saying that He was God. No, He made Himself of no reputation in the sense that, although He was God the Son, He walked the earth as a man. But one thing that Paul pointed out that I think is key is that, He did not think it robbery to be equal with God! Remember that while Jesus ministered, again and again He said things like, “I only do those things that please the Father; I can do nothing of myself, it is the Father in me that does the work; If you have seen me, you have seen the Father!” The point is that He knew His standing and His position in God and walked in the power of the anointing that was upon Him. He did not diminish His ministry at all for the sake of trying to be humble. He was humble. Humility caused Him to acknowledge all that He could do in God. This is my point. It is not humility to constantly put yourself down so that people will think that you are humble. This is actually a form of pride because when God says one thing and we say another, then we are saying we are right and God is wrong! Some try to appear humble and say things about themselves that God does not say about them. True Humility True humility is to acknowledge and to agree with what God has said about us in Christ. If He says we are more than conquerors, then humility is to say that we are more than conquerors. If He says we are healed by the stripes of Jesus, then the humble person will say, “Even though I may look and feel sick, I must be healed, because God says that I am!” If we were to say “I know that the Bible says that I am healed by the stripes of Jesus, but I don’t believe that I am because I look and feel sick,” then we are not walking in humility because we are not humbling ourselves to agree with what God has said about us. This is actually the same thing we did when we came to Christ. We acknowledged what God said about us: that we were sinners in need of salvation; that Jesus took our sins and died in our place; that He was buried and then raised from the dead for our justification. Then we said with our mouth that we believed that He was Lord and that God raised Him from the dead. We received Him into our hearts by faith and then began to say that we were now saved and had become a Christian. That is humility! To say, “Well the Bible says that Jesus died for my sins, but I don’t believe God could forgive me for the things I have done...” or to say, “I know what the Bible says, but I don’t believe that Jesus is the only way to be saved...” or to say, “I believe that if I die, I will go to heaven because I am a good person and I treat my fellow man the way I want to be treated, etc...” are examples of someone who does not want to humble themselves to come to Him the way He said that we must come. So humility is to acknowledge the truth and to walk in the light of that truth.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 13:27:55 +0000
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