Running the Race

When I was in high school I tried out for many sports. In my Freshman and Sophomore year I played football and basketball and at the end of my Sophomore year the football coach came to me and told me as kindly as he could not to try out for the football team because I was on the small side. At this time I was not happy with basketball either, the coach and I didn't see eye to eye on things like favoritism and my playing time(when I say playing time I mean lack of playing time....well I mean like it was non-existent). That spring I decided to give track a whirl. I mainly stayed with the field events at first, because I had no desire to run in circles. Then as the season progressed my coach needed a 400 meter hurdle runner so I tried it. After a couple of weeks I got pretty good at it. A few weeks later the distance coach got a hold of me and that was it my running career began. I then ran cross country and track my Junior and Senior year. I started to enjoy it because I was half way descent at it. It is because of that time in my life that I have always had a fondness for bible verses that talk about running. I could relate to the symbolism.

This week I am going to be teaching our of Hebrews 12:1-3, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted."

As I read this passage a couple of things stuck out to me having been a runner. The first was the part where the writer of Hebrews says "let us also lay aside every weight". The Greek word used here for lay aside every weight is the word for hook. The idea here is a hook that you would use to hang some objects by. In today's terms it might be a hanger that you use to hold your clothes, but this hanger would hold heavier things. The though that came to my mind was, "you've got be kidding me running with something attached to you? You could never run to your full potential that way". That is the writers point exactly. The message to us out of this is that we can not run the Christian race as long as we are weighted down by things like anxiety, fear of man, fear of death, fear of being made fun of or even something as simple as not repenting of your sins. You see in your race all these things weigh you down and your running will not be that effective. I can remember as a runner the clothes we would wear, I should say the lack of clothes we would wear, they were barely there because you did not want them to interfere with your running. Dear believer shed those things that may be weighing you down. Go to the Lord now in prayer and ask Him to help you shed those things.

The second thing that struck me was "and the sin that clings to you". The imagery here is fantastic! The Greek word here gives you the idea of something closely guarded, some sin that is constantly occurring in your life. When I read this I though of a friend of mine. This friend would work out with leg weights on. I practice he would never be towards the front of the pack because of the leg weights. Our coach would tell him that the leg weights worked out the wrong muscles and worked out the right muscles the wrong way. In essence he would never gain the speed he needed to be effective in a race. Sure enough when race day came, he was never towards the front because of his workout habits and his lack of listening to the coach. That is the idea here. The writer of Hebrews is telling you and I that we need to shed the sin in our lives that hinder our running the race. When we entertain sin and tell ourselves it's ok, that is hampering your ability to run the race. When we allow certain sins into our lives because they are fun, we hamper our ability to run he race. When we justify sin in our life because other so called believers do it, we hamper our ability to run the race. Dear believer shed that sin. Strip yourself down to only the necessary things to the race you are running.

Dear believer run the race to your best ability and don't be complacent with a walk. Run.....run as hard as you can and to the best of your ability striving for those around you to impacted by the manner in which you run.

It's a Good Thing God isn't an NBA Referee

It's funny, basketball is my favorite sport. I enjoy playing the game even though in my ever increasing age what little talent I had is getting less and less and my recovery time from playing is getting greater and greater. I love college basketball more than the NBA, but at this time of the year I do watch a few NBA playoff games. You see I really do not like watching the NBA, because there are two sets of rules. One for the highly talented, famous ones and one for the rookies and the not so talented. If a sport has rules then they should apply to all and not just a few.

As I sat and watched one game tonight I thought about if God was an NBA referee. Would you have to be rich or famous to be worthy of salvation? Would it be about the return on His investment in you? Would He favor some of us over others because of our talents? Would pastors gain a greater favor with Him than say a lay leader? If God were to treat us like NBA referees referee an NBA game we would not know how to get to heaven or even if we did our best if we would even get into heaven.

I find comfort in knowing that my God is a fair God and that He does not judge us based on who we are. We all start out as sinners (Romans 3:23 "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,") and it's by Gods grace that we are seen as perfect (Romans 3:24 "being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus"). It is not based on how we use the talent God gifted us with and how we use it. It is not based on a popularity contest or how many good deeds we do. 

As I watch the NBA I will be reminded now and find comfort in the fact that my God is the same God for me as He is with you. I will find comfort in the fact that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ for both of us. I will find comfort in the fact that there is nothing I can do to gain salvation outside of proclaim Christ as my Lord and Savior. 

Kids That Live.......Gospel

The past few days I have been working on final lesson for our college group this school year. You see our college group is primarily students that live in other places then my beloved SCV. Now it's not like we shut our group down for the summer or anything like that, but come May 11th our college group will decrease by 80% and takes on a totally different dynamic. While studying I couldn't help but think about raising the next generation to live like the Gospel matters.

So how do we as Christian parents do that? Well the best way in my mind is to train them in the understanding of Scripture, not just memorization. Take a look at the Westminster Catechism for Children. I believe this to be a great way to help your children to understand the theology that comes with an understanding of scripture. Let's take a look at a few.

The first is "Who made you?" Teaching the understanding of this one principal this day in age is a great state. In a society that questions who made who to teach your kids that an all knowing creator God created them is a monumental start.

The second is "What else did God make?" After your child understands that he/she did not just come from some ooze and that they have an almighty God that created them, they can learn that He also made everything else. Boy I don't think Oprah will go there. We must instill in our children that their God, the one that wants to have a personal relationship with them created everything.

The third is "Why did God make all things?" Goodness, doesn't this piece of theology fly in the face of our culture? When we teach our children that God created all things for His glory and not our own personal fame and glory we raise a generation that is humbled by the awesomeness of our God. This one question also brings us back to raising children that live like the gospel matters in their lives. If we raise our kids to understand that they are here on earth at this point in time to glorify God then we see kids that understand that life is not about them.

I could go on and on with this. Questions like "Can God do all things?", "Where do you learn how to love and obey God?" and "Can any one be saved through the covenant of works?" Parents have you ever looked at the Westminster Catechism as a part of your understanding of what we believe? If you have never read this you should take some time and go over it. What a way to understand what we believe.

I pray that we would all raise children that live like the Gospel matters.

Man's Great End

The following is taken from "The Valley of Vision". Normally I don't do this, but this is one of my favorites and this morning as I read it and even now as I write it I pray that I would live this.

Lord of all Being,
There is one thing that deserves my greatest care,
that calls forth my ardent desires,
That is, that I may answer the great end for which I am made -
to glorify thee who hast given me being,
and to do all the good I can for my fellow men;
Verily, life is not worth having
if it be not improved for His noble purpose.
Yet, Lord, how little is this the thought of mankind!
Most men seem to live for themselves,
without much or any regard for thy glory,
or for the good of others;
They earnestly desire and eagerly pursue
the riches, honours, pleasures of the life,
as if they supposed that wealth, greatness, merriment,
could make their immortal souls happy;
But alas, what false delusive dreams are these!
And how miserable ere long will those be that sleep in them,
for all our happiness consists in loving thee,
and being holy as thou art holy.

O may I never fall into the tempers and vanities,
the sensuality and folly of the present world!
It is a place of inexpressible sorrow, a vast empty nothingness;
Time is a moment, a vapor,
and all its enjoyment are empty bubbles,
fleeting blasts of wind,
from which nothing satisfactory can be derived;
Give me grace always to keep in covenant with thee,
and to reject as delusion a great name here or hereafter,
together with all sinful pleasures or profits.
Help me to know continually
that there can be no true happiness,
no fulfilling of thy purpose for me,
apart from a life lived in and for
the Son of thy love.

My prayer is that I would live like the Gospel Matters! Live with a Kingdom purpose and not to get caught up in the folly of the world. I hope yours is too.

Living Like the Gospel Matters

What could be better than a weekend at the beach? Could it be beach camping with a good cup of Starbucks in your hand? Could it be watching the wonderful sunrise and sunset that can only be captured when camping? Those are all good things, but a great weekend at the beach includes a great speaker challenging between 40-50 college students to start living a life that shows that the Gospel matters.

This past weekend was the Placerita Baptist College group camp out and it was a wonderful time of hearing Gods Word taught and admiring Gods creation in all it's splendor. A person who I am glad to call my friend, Todd Nighswonger, Executive Pastor at Simi valley Cornerstone Church, was our speaker and he taught out of 1 Corinthians.

Todd in teaching through 1 Corinthians asked us if when we woke up each morning do we think about the work we as believers are privileged to do, the work of the gospel and spreading it through out So. Cal. and beyond. He then went through a day and asked if we were excited that all day long we were to be living, eating and breathing the Gospel. He asked us if when we look at unbelievers are we praying for them to come to a saving knowledge of the Gospel. Then he asked us that as we lay our head down at night are we excited by the fact that tomorrow morning we get to do it all over again. In fact you will know that you have run into one of our college students because he challenged us to remind each other of our Gospel duty by saying to each other,"Gospel". So right now if you have Facebook you can see the impact of this message, because our campers have posted their status as "Gospel". I pray that this will not just be a "mountain top" experience.

In his final message he challenged us to live for the Kingdom. He told us that if we were living like the Gospel mattered then our finances would be used for advancing the Kingdom, our education would be used for advancing the Kingdom and most of all our lives would be given to advance the Kingdom. What a challenge for today's Christian! Are you living like the Gospel matters?

A thought that I was struck with throughout this weekend was that there is no such thing as an inactive Christian. As believers we are to be active at all times, living like the Gospel matters and do everything within the talents that God has given us to further the Kingdom.

What Ever Happened to the Color Purple?

You know it's very interesting the way people flock to celebrities. It's almost like we feel if we are somehow tied to them (i.e. wearing their clothes line, autographs or their line of dishes) that we will be a celebrity to. Lately though we have seen celebrities advocating the religion they support unabashedly (i.e. Tom Cruise and Scientology). The one that I have tried to steer clear of is Oprah though. When she endorsed "The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne I shrugged it off to her version of "Scientology". But lately Oprah has taken on a new sense of spiritual enthusiasm. It wasn't until I read this article this morning that I realized that this is getting to be like a fire in So. Cal. on a day that the Santa Ana's are blowing a gale.

Oprah has taken this idea of informing us of her religion to the next step, which is evangelizing us with her religious beliefs. Even in our Post Modern, everyone has their own personal truth culture, her "religion" seems pretty out there. As shown in this article even the press seems to be hammering on her choice of people to support as her guru's. So why did I feel now was a good time to bring this up?

2 Timothy 4:3 says, "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but {wanting} to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,"

I believe that we live in a culture that typifies what Paul was telling Timothy in the above verse. We live in a culture first that cannot "endure" sound doctrine. Thats just it isn't it? They do not have the foundation to endure that battle at hand. When you have a solid foundation in God through Christ by the reading and understanding of His word then and only then will you be able to endure the battle at hand. This is not to say that it will be easy, but you will have the armor that is required to fight.

So then when believers in our culture do not endure we see that they give into a doctrine that "tickles" their ears. The idea is that because the Gospel is so hard to believe they seek a palatable gospel. This is where the post modern church steps in. They have a gospel of love so that they can attract more people. They take away the necessity for the cross so that they do not have to be sinners in the hand of an angry God. Our culture also will take away the singularity of the truth so that their sin can become tolerable. If we reduce God to our level, if we say that God is not all knowing, if we say that God is not everywhere or if we say that God is not all powerful then we teach a heretical gospel. When we do not endure we will seek a Gospel that does not convict us.

Then comes the last verse and what I feel sums up our culture to a tee. They seek teachers in accordance to their desires. Since these people are not well grounded they seek out teachers that teach a doctrine that is easy to believe. Not only are there pastors teaching Gospel lite, but there are people that want a lite Gospel. This is where we come to Oprah and her bizarre religious beliefs. Since her religion talks about how we are all good and that we just need to find ourselves. Believers we need to defend our faith from the attacks by people like Oprah and the Post Modern Church. It's more than that though, it's also evangelizing the people caught up in these ministries. We must desire to see them come to know the one true Gospel. Pray that many warriors would be raised up for this battle.

If you would like to listen some powerful messages on teaching the one true Gospel, listen to these messages from the Together for the Gospel conference.

Dr. Peter Jones on University Truth Exchange

Below is a video that Jay Wetger of The Masters College sent me of Dr. Peter Jones describing UTX (University Truth Exchange). It is going on this weekend at The Masters College and this will be the only time it's on the west coast. You can sign up at the College. This is a conference that will be all over the country so if you would like to know if it will be in your region of the country please feel free to leave me a comment and I will get you the information.

It's all in the Parenting

This morning as I was going through my normal reading regiment I came across and article (sidebar to this article has some articles that are inappropriate please use caution when navigating there) about a young lady that started drinking at 12. By he time she was 14 she had liver failure, but that did not stop her. She is now 18 and is in rehab. She suffers from short term memory loss due to the drinking.

As a Christian parent I read this and was appalled at the fact that the mom didn't have a clue about what was going on, but then as I though about it I know parents like this and they attend church weekly. It is amazing to me that parents can be so clueless about the goings on of their children, but yet in our society it has become "cool" to let our kids act like adults. We have allowed our kids the freedoms that used to be only alloted to an adult and the scary thing is that we, as society, are allowing it to affect younger and younger children.

So how do we handle this as Christian parents? Do we bring our kids in closer to home and become inclusive? Do we shelter our kids from the culture to he point that all they know is the four walls of your home? I don't believe so. I believe whether you are a home school parent or a parent of a public school kid these dangers exist. It all comes back to the interaction you have with your children and how you have trained them.

There are a few of scripture that always come to mind when I think of how I should parent my children.

Psalm 34:11 " Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD."

Psalm 78:5 "For He established a testimony in Jacob And appointed a law in Israel, Which He commanded our fathers That they should teach them to their children,"

Deut. 6:6-9 "These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates."

We are to train our children to in scripture so that they will turn from sin when encountering it. We as parents cannot expect to always be there when our kids encounter temptation. By shielding our kids from what we perceive sin to be instead of training our kids in scripture and helping them to understand who God is will be foolishness and yet many Christian parents see this as a solution. Sheltering our kids from the culture is not the solution. the solution is training our kids.

We as parents, not just Christian parents must start acting like their parents and not their friends. We must debrief them when they get home from school, screen their friends and most of all listen to their music and screen their television shows and movies. We as parents are supposed to train and guide them not hang out with them.
Parents how well do you know your kids? Do you know their friends? Do you know what they are doing? Don't be like the mom above and assume that your child is at a friends house instead of at school.

A Shameless Plug

For awhile now my brother in law, Matt Green and a person on staff with me at our church, Brad Silverman along with a myriad of other people have been working on a faith based movie called "No Greater Love".

Here is a synopsis of the movie, taken from the web site for the movie:

Jeff and Heather were the “Lucky ones.” Best friends from childhood, high school sweethearts, and married by twenty-two. They were inseparable soul mates. Over time, however, Jeff became a workaholic, and Heather felt the neglect. After the birth of their son, Ethan, and with Jeff never around, Heather fell into a deep depression. In a moment of despair, Heather made the life-altering decision to leave Jeff for the night…and never returned. After police searches, missing person’s reports, and endless efforts to find her…she was gone.

Ten years later…life has moved on for Jeff and Ethan. Jeff is on the verge of proposing to Katie, his girlfriend of eight months, and Ethan has grown into a well-adjusted eleven year old. While not forgotten, Heather is a vivid, but distant memory of the past for Jeff, and no memory at all for Ethan.

Jeff is befriended by Dave, a fellow regular at a local coffee house. After striking up a friendship, they learn that their sons are baseball little league teammates. With summer break approaching, Dave encourages Jeff to allow Ethan to come to “Kids Fest,” a fun, week-long kid’s summer event at Dave’s church. Ambivalent toward God and church, but feeling that Kids Fest would be - if nothing else - good babysitting for his son, Jeff accepts.

Ethan has a blast, and on the final day, Jeff and Katie are persuaded to attend a brief show, which the kids are performing. It is on this day that Jeff receives the monumental shock of his life. Heather is one of the Kids Fest helpers!

Three years prior to their Kids Fest encounter, Heather had been saved from her sin, and was now a committed Christian. With all her heart, she had diligently attempted to find the whereabouts of Jeff and Ethan, but was ultimately unsuccessful. Turning it over to God, she had fervently been praying to see them again, and by God’s grace, here they were!

Jeff is forced to wrestle with forgiveness, reconciliation, and the irresistible grace of God.

I would encourage you to go to the web site to see a behind the scenes video and to sign up for updates on the movie. Most of all I would like to ask you to pray for this movie.....pray that it may find it's way into an arena that would get the maximum exposure and pray that people would come to know the Lord through this.

The Purrrrfect Cup of Joe

OK tonight while doing my normal Internet reading I came across this article about a $100 cup of coffee. Now I consider myself somewhat of a coffee snob. I like Peet's coffee instead of Starbucks coffee because I feel that the flavor of Peet's black coffee is a lot better. So......when I see an article about a $100 cup I have to see what's so special about these beans that makes this cup of coffee worth $100. 

Well this is a blend of two types of beans, it combines Jamaican Blue Mountain and Kupi Luwak, two extremely rare coffees. Now check this part out, "The beans of Kupi Luwak are harvested after first being ingested by Civet cats and only around 260 kilos of the coffee is produced each year." OK lets follow this logic, cat ingests coffee beans and ......coffee beans come out....a yeah the coffee beans come out of the cat. I can see the barista now, "Sir would you like the kitty litter blend or the non-kitty letter blend?" They call it Caffe Raro, they should call it the Purina Blend or the new and improved Meow Mix.

OK so check out this quote, "The cats select the best beans to chew. It's rather like a natural filtering process," OK so lets go through this one more time....the cats eat the beans and the beans come out. Does that gross anyone other than me out?

So now for the understatement quote of the year..."It's not exactly flying off the shelves -- it's very expensive after all -- but customers are buying it," I have a feeling it has nothing with the price.

So tomorrow morning I think I will grind my non-kitty cat beans and have a good cup of coffee. And to think that I used to think that $2 for a cup of coffee was expensive.

The Saddest Time of Year

This is the saddest time of the year for me. Why, you may ask. Is it because something wrong with your family? Does your job slow down to the point where you feel like you might get laid off? Is it getting close to your birthday and you really are starting feel old? As much as those questions all sound like important reasons to feel sad, they are not the reason for my sadness. For you see when we hit the beginning of April, there isn't any college basketball to watch. I come off the best time of the year, March Madness, and then go straight into the worst time of the year, no more college basketball.

You see I am a UCLA fan. I bleed Bruin blue through and through. This year, like the two previous, we fell short of a national title. That means that until late November I have to be satisfied with the fact that we lost to Memphis and that maybe next year we will come home to Westwood with the title. This is also the saddest time because I have to wait and see which of non-seniors will jump to the NBA. I say to myself, "maybe that feeling of no national title will bring the non-seniors back, maybe......just maybe".

What I described above is not far from the truth about where I used to be with college basketball. I would mope around after team losses, like I was apart of the team or something. I would always use the word "we" when referring to the team, like I was the 13th man at the end of the bench waiting for the coach to say,"okay Pilarski, since my guys don't seem to want to win a title you go in and show them how it's done". I found fulfillment in every win, hope in every season and salvation in every National Title. 

So what's changed you may ask. Well what's changed is my relationship with Christ. You see, instead of finding fulfillment in a win, I now find fulfillment in scripture and living a life that glorifies my God. I find fulfillment in knowing that I have a loving God that desires my best and desires me follow Him. I find hope in Christ now. I find that hope in His death and resurrection. I find hope in the fact that I will reign with Him for eternity. I find hope in the fact that my God loved me so much that He sent His Son down here to die for my sins. I find salvation in Him alone. I know that I am saved from the wrath to come. I know that I am saved from an eternity in hell. I know that because Christ paid the price for my sins that I have salvation from an eternity of pain and suffering to which extent I cannot understand in this lifetime.

Now don't get me wrong I still watch college basketball. I am still a UCLA die hard and still desire another National Title, but it now just pales in comparison to the joy I have in my God and what He did for me.

How to Force Feed a Dying Man

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about evangelization and how Christians are perceived while evangelizing. As I look around the internet and as I watch how we train our people how to evangelize, the one thing I see missing is love and compassion.I see us as believers more interested in winning the argument, like this is debate club or something, and less interested in winning that soul into the kingdom. The way I see it is we see the dying man,having a disease we call sin, and instead of inoculating him to the disease we force feed him horse pills we call the Gospel until he chokes on it. At that point the dying man questions your bed side manner and chooses death over life.

We as believers must first and foremost remember that we were sinners just like them and that, by the grace of God, we were saved from hell by that grace. 

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

"And although you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you formerly lived according to this world’s present path,  according to the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the ruler of the spirit that is now energizing the sons of disobedience, among whom  all of us also formerly lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest… But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even though we were dead in transgressions, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you are saved!" Ephesians 2:1-5

If we as believers are to have salvation in mind then our methodology should reflect that. We should act humbly as Christ did. We should act lovingly as Christ did. We should act with compassion as Christ did. This doesn't mean we present a watered down Gospel. We do not allow people to get away with sin, but when we bring sin to their attention we do it remembering that there is sin in our lives.

Dear believer let the light shine in your life as well as your words, allow those you are sharing the Gospel with see that you live out what you preach. Love the sinner, hate the sin. Desire them to come to a saving knowledge of Christ and do not desire to win the debate.

Sin is serious and just as a skilled surgeon removes cancer from a dying man, we should skillfully desire to bring people to the grace and knowledge and comfort we have in our Savior.

University Truth X Change

You know I am always amazed at who and what the Lord brings my way. Because of where our church is situated, next to The Master's College and down the freeway from The Master's Seminary, I get the pleasure of meeting some of the leading men in Bible translation, Apologetics and other realms of Christian academia. Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of meeting Jay Wetger, Theology and Worldview professor at The Master's College. I had Jay come and talk to our college students about a seminar he is doing with Dr. Peter Jones on teaching secular school college students how to evangelize in our post modern culture. I believe this to be a great opportunity for our college students to look beyond the old approach to evangelization and to be trained up in the new warfare of post modernity. As I spoke to Jay yesterday I was reminded that we are at war with an enemy that will stop at nothing, not to win us over to his side mind you, but to just neutralize us. The enemy would have us arguing amongst ourselves about contextualization and not finding ways to take the battle to the culture. 

Ephesians 6:11 "Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil."

Romans 13:12 "The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light."

We as believers need to realize that the battle has changed and much like today as we fight abroad with bullet proof vests and more powerful weaponry,not knives and clubs as we once did, the way we fight the battle must change also. We are no longer in the modern era where academia triumphs. In the post modern era ambiguity and the fact that we all believe in a "type" of Christ works triumphs our battle plan must change. We must look into developing relationships with people and investing time with them. This is not to say that we stop spontaneous cold evangelization, but that we explore other ways to take the True Gospel to our culture.

With hat if you are able to get to The Master's College on April 18 and 19th I would strongly encourage you to attend the University Truth X Change's conference on "Walking in the Land of Blur".

By the way this conference is going on all over the United States so if any of you are interested in this conference please let me know and I will look into the other locations for this conference.

Spurgeon on Humility

In studying for Sunday I came across a message Charles Spurgeon gave on Humility. This was such a great sermon that I thought I would share some of it with you.

Spurgeon said, “I would not advise any of you to try to be humble, but to be humble. As to acting humbly, when a man forces himself to it, that is poor stuff. When a man talks a great deal about his humility, when he is very humble to everybody, he is generally a canting hypocrite. Humility must be in the heart, and then it will come out spontaneously as the outflow of life in every act that a man performs."

I like the fact that he says that he would not advise anyone to try to be humble, but to be humble. So many times that defines us isn't it. We are making an effort to be humble and while we are we're thinking to ourselves "am I being humble". If you have to ask the question then you probably are not being humble. I do believe like Spurgeon that once you speak of humility in yourself, it no longer is humility.


Spurgeon’s sermon applied the idea of how to walk humbly with your God:

* Walk humbly when you are spiritually strong (Do not be proud like you have achieved something on your own. Remember that without the Holy Spirit you would be a spiritual weakling)

* Walk humbly when you have much work to do (Do not act like you are "all that" because you are busy)

* Walk humbly in all your motives (This is really what it's boiled down to. This is a heart issue. Why do you do what you do?)

* Walk humbly studying God’s word (Don't believe it's your intelligence or your insight. You are not as smart as you think.)

* Walk humbly when under trials (Do not boast in your trials or how you are enduring your trials. Let your life show how you are doing.)

* Walk humbly in your devotions (Understand that anything you gain from your time in the Word is from God and not from you. Your consistency in the quite time is not you, but the Lord in you.)

* Walk humbly between you and your brothers in Christ (In today's culture this is the difficult one, isn't it. We are taught that you boast in how great you are. You flaunt your talent and humiliate others through your talent. I once heard a talented athlete say that his talent was from God to show others humility, by humiliating them. Wrong!)

* Walk humbly when dealing with sinners (We need to remember that we once were sinners to. We should never lord our salvation over those who are not saved. We should also not expect them to act like believers.)

“True humility is thinking rightly of thyself, not meanly. When you have found out what you really are, you will be humble, for you are nothing to boast of. To be humble will make you safe. To be humble will make you happy. To be humble will make music in your heart when you go to bed. To be humble here will make you wake up in the likeness of your Master by-and-by.”