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August 2 - August 26, 2017
We do not hate our bodies for what they are; we hate them for what they are not. We hate them for not being godlike. We hate them for being imperfect. We hate them for being limited.
like the man and woman in the garden, instead of rejecting the pride that tells us we could be like God, we reject our bodies that tell us we cannot.
To reclaim humility, Jesus embraced human limits as good. To restore our humanity, Jesus revealed the goodness of being bound in space and time.
When a woman flaunts her sexuality, she does not necessarily want to be reduced to a sex object, but she’s learned, if only by instinct, that this is how a woman can rule in a broken world.
We tell both to be suspicious of the other, always looking for the deeper motive behind a gesture, a look, or an outfit.
Underneath the Colossians’ legalism was a profound and certain trust in themselves.
“The chief mark of counterfeit holiness,” writes Andrew Murray, “is its lack of humility.…
We do not break the cycle of manipulation and control by trying to regulate male/female relationships. We break the cycle by turning both men and women’s eyes to Christ.
But today, being true to yourself doesn’t mean making an honest evaluation of yourself; it means embracing your emotional experience of the world as truth.
Humility teaches us that “God is greater than our heart.”
we don’t have to obey our emotions because the only version of reality that matters is God’s.
our greatest skill lies in the infusion of Hopes, to induce confidence and peace of mind.”
Because humility teaches us that our feelings are not the measure of reality, humility also teaches us that the only person who has the right to condemn us is God Himself.
by judging ourselves, we put ourselves in God’s place.
When you play Holy Spirit in your own life, you’ll quickly become comfortable playing Holy Spirit in other people’s lives as well.
he wanted them to be convinced by the power of God. But this meant that Paul had to trust the power of God himself. He had to humble himself to be nothing more than a mouthpiece. He had to wait on the Holy Spirit to change hearts.
a sun-ripened tomato is one of God’s clearest acts of common grace.
Humility, on the other hand, predisposes us to believe that we always have something to learn.
Not only does humility teach us that knowledge comes from outside us, it also reminds us that we cannot perfectly categorize and process the knowledge that we do have.
In each case, “right”ness comes through more and better knowledge.
We follow Augustine [in saying] ‘I believe in order that I might understand.’”
he’s advocating “epistemological humility”—accepting that our minds are limited.
It’s not that truth doesn’t exist. It’s not even that human beings can’t know truth. Humility simply leaves room that my understanding of a situation could be wrong.
Ultimately our need to be “right” and to defend our “right”eousness is a form of self-reliance and pride.
It is entirely possible to hold very progressive views and hold them out of the pride of being right.
And then you can finally rest. Your mind can be at ease.
You don’t have to point out where other people are wrong.
humility teaches us to be less concerned with knowing the answers and more concerned with learning the answers.
When a problem or choice presents itself, we don’t want go through the growing process; we want an answer immediately.
Humility teaches us to let knowledge ripen on the vine.
It’s interesting that while Jesus is concerned that His disciples grow in their understanding, He is also comfortable with them not knowing all things—in part because they aren’t ready for more knowledge yet.
Jesus is also confident in the Holy Spirit’s ability to take them through the process. But as He told them a few moments earlier, this process can only happen in relationship; it can only happen as they depend on Him; it can only happen as they are connected to Him, the Vine.
In God’s wisdom the very process of learning binds us to Him in a way that simply knowing the answers cannot. And so He asks you to trust Him. He asks you to live in dependence. He asks you to humble yourself to wait for Him.
We must learn to view spiritual formation as the process of ripening on the vine, not simply the process of turning red.
So, too, humility teaches us to wait. To wait for the Holy Spirit to guide us into all truth. To wait for those we love to come to understanding. To wait for answers that, in God’s own wisdom, may never come. But humility also teaches us that we don’t need to know everything as long as we know the one who does know.
This may sound simplistic, but left unchecked, pride blinds us to God’s good gifts.
it also convinces us that we deserve a certain experience of the world; and when something disrupts that, our pride reveals itself by complaining.
In its most basic sense, privilege is the reality that some people have access to more resources through no effort of their own, and some people have access to fewer resources through no fault of their own.
The problem with privilege is that we rarely see our own.
We also fail to remember how much we have inherited from past generations.
Instead of comparing what you have with other people (either more or less), humility teaches you to compare what you have now with what you had when you entered this world.
Your very existence is a gift
For Jesus, childhood embodies humble dependence.
we are to humbly depend on God for life.
It’s not surprising, then, that this is exactly how Jesus entered our world. Jesus came as an infant—helpless, naked, and vulnerable.
this is the way we must enter His kingdom as well. Helpless, naked, and vulnerable.
But if we do it out of guilt (and make sure to broadcast our sacrifices loudly enough), our experience of the world is still the driving force.
even the ability to embrace a minimalist lifestyle is based in abundance.
because we have access to so many resources, we have the luxury of throwing them away
If we take a great deal of satisfaction in how little we need, in how much we reject abundance, simplicity becomes nothing more than an asceticism that, as theologian J. I. Packer puts it, is “too proud to enjoy the enjoyable.”8
