Old Jerry

Motives is probably one of the most important to humility because it says why we are doing it. If our motive is for people to see us then we are not being genuinely humble. If it to advance someone else then we are being humble. We have to work on our hearts daily to make them humbler. To guard our hearts mean we should be careful of what we do and why we do it.

The reason that caring for orphans and widows constitute pure religion is that they can’t pry you back for what you have done. The only pay you get is self-gratification. Dorcas and Mother Teresa was so inspiring because they served the destitute without all the hoop la that some people like.

The saying about giving a cup of cold water and the Parable of the Sheep and Goats have in common is serving others and to be humble about it. There are all kinds of services that we can perform that would please Jesus. Most of all volunteering for different public projects is a great way of pleasing Jesus.

Jesus wanted to get his point across that they were to humble themselves so that they could be more acceptable to God.

The basic difference between the world’s pattern of leadership and Christ’s pattern is that in Christ’s pattern we are to serve and in the world’s pattern of leadership we are the ones being served. Servant-leadership looks like the leader is always thinking of ways of promoting the people they are in charge of. You can not be a “great” Jesus-follower without serving humbly.

The way that pride makes me God’s opponent is that I think I have to do things my way and that brings pride into the picture. To submit to God, brings on humility because we can’t take credit for the things that we do. We can “wash our hands and purity our hearts” be submitting to God’s commands. We have to get rid of our pride in order to humble ourselves so that God can lift us up.

When we associate and welcome low-status people we are humbling ourselves because we can associate with their plight. The poorest economically people in my community live of the south side of town. We reach out to them by providing a school for them and encourage them by providing for them.

Little children will look up to you and depend on you for the wise decisions. We are to depend on God in the same way that children trust in their parents.

The pharisees loved to be called “Rabbi” because it made them feel important. Titles and recognition exalt our pride because that puts us above others. When people fail to recognize our work or accomplishments it hurts our pride and maybe the next time, we many not do as good of a job. I think that most of our motivation is to puff up our ego.

The Pharisee is exalting himself when he tells God what a great job his doing on earth. Then the Pharisee is looking down on others because he is proud in how he has fasted and tithed in the littlest of things he had. The tax collector humbled himself because he couldn’t even look up because he has sinned against his fellow men. We have to humble ourselves because how can we be saved if we don’t think that we need Jesus to save us. If we are asking God to forgive us then repentance has something to do with faith and believing in Jesus. But if we are asking for forgiveness from another person then it doesn’t have any thing to do with faith.

Pride is the basic sin that drives all other sins. If we let God control our lives then we will be able to see all the good things that God has done. Unless we repent and humble ourselves, we will not be able to see all of God’s good works.

Jesus humbled himself when they put him on the cross. He also humbled himself when he forgave those who were against him. He humbled himself to draw more people to forgiveness. The result of Jesus’ humbling himself was to die on the cross and to be raised again to the right hand of God.

Being in a place of authority does not prevent me from correction with humility. When you correct your children, you are usually doing it out of love for them. Jesus rebukes his disciples and them encourages them so that he can teach them.

All of Jesus’ examples of ministering to the hurting stands out but the one that I think is the greatest is the healing of the leper when he tells him not to tell anyone what happened to him. This was a humble action but he also didn’t want the healing to be announced so that he would be able to heal many more.

Jesus’ refusal to seek man’s praise will make him humble because he is doing things that he should be doing. This frees him to do God’s will because he isn’t trying to please man but only God. If we are seeking approval from others, it will cripple our discipleship because we will be trying to please man and not God. It is impossible to please man and God.

Jesus is powerless on His own because He is looking to the Father for advice. The key to Jesus’ power and effectiveness is consulting the Father in all that He does. This demonstrate his basic humility be giving the Father all the glory. We emulate Jesus in this by always going to God and giving him the credit for what we accomplish. This demonstrates our humility by not taking the credit.

Jesus is “gentle and lowly in heart” all the time because he has taken time to save us and to guide us. This tells us that He is always with us even to the end of the age. We know that we can take comfort in Him because He is with us. We can turn to Him when we have problems and He will give us comfort.

We can rationally consider others’ concerns more important than our own by listening to their concerns. We can try to help them resolve their concerns if they are reasonable. Yes, love for others makes good sense otherwise we would be able to help them. This viewpoint of humility in us will make easer to work with them. We should be willing to help other, if possible, before we help ourselves.

The reason that an accurate self-assessment of our spiritual state is so important because we live by our spiritual state. People can watch you and see what your spiritual state you are in by the way you act. Discovering our spiritual gifts is so important because we are the only on with those gifts and in order to be a part of a functioning body we need to use those gifts. If we try to fit in where God didn’t design for us, we will become frustrated and make everybody around us miserable and probably leave the church.

The things that happen in our hearts when we attribute success to our own strength and abilities is we become conceded and we are always wanting more. Knowing that anything that we have has been given to us by God does humble us and wants us to be a better steward of our God given abilities.

Virtues flow from humility because you are putting others before yourself where vices is always putting yourself before others. Your character comes from your humility and pride. People can see your actions and can tell if you are humble which is your character.

The two-part definition of humility corresponds to the two greatest commandments because if you love some one you have to be humble other wise you would be walking all over them. We should try to look after others as well as ourselves. That looks like love in a disciple.

Drifting away gradual makes it look like you are still following Jesus when you are not. It could also be a subconscious reaction to the situation you are in. When you suddenly give in to a temptation you are fully aware of what you are doing. You can protect yourself from drifting away from the Lord by studying the bible daily, making sure that your friends are Christians, and making sure you have a pastor that is preaching the bible.

I think that the worst sin is that of idolatry. This is a sin against God. The other sins were against man. We can do all the good works and have a lot of accomplishments in the world, but when are flaw shows up, we will always be remembered for that flaw.

To me this is Solomon’s greatest strengths and accomplishments. Numbers 3, 4, 5, 7, 11. These traits are looking outward and not inward. Solomon was so gifted because God gave him that gift.