A major component of a disciple’s sanctification process is humility. This devotional reading looks at how our lack of humility can affect the doubts of our salvation.
Nuggets
- We don’t have the experience or can understand, so have no reason but to be humble.
- We have little faith, so have no reason but to be humble.
- We only find rest in Jesus, so have no reason but to be humble.
In the last devotion, we started a study to see what habits we can pick up to battle and defeat our doubts regarding our salvation. The lens we are looking through is how Christ will not lose what is given to Him. We talked in the last devotion that God gives us to Christ by showing us our sin and misery.
God also gives us to Christ by making us humble.
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.
Here is a running list of nuggets for the theme.
Devotions in the The Surity of Our Salvation study
Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.
The foundation of this study is Beveridge’s sermon The Believer’s Safety
Resource
The title of the devotion is Beveridge’s words.
Reasons We Should be Humble
“From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him” (Isa. 64: 4 ESV)
We don’t have the experience or can understand, so have no reason but to be humble.
Mankind is so prideful. We think we are free from sin on our own accord.
We would be wrong.
Pride gets in our way. It keeps us from examining ourselves to eradicate sin.
But when we do take an honest look at ourselves, we see we don’t have reason to be prideful. In truth, we find ourselves, according to Melvill, lacking in three big ways that has nothing to do with our pride.
We have insufficient material for conducting a self-evaluation. Heaven can’t be comprehended. We can’t comprehend it.
Insufficient Material for Conducting a Self-Evaluation
We do not have enough knowledge and experience to make a true, complete evaluation of ourselves. “That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him’” (I Cor. 2: 9 NLT).
Melvill cautioned us, though, if we try to apply this passage to a discussion of Heaven. He wrote, “The words [in I Cor. 2: 9] may, indeed, be accommodated to heaven; but as used, whether by Isaiah or St. Paul, they have nothing whatever to do with heaven; and it is nothing but by that common habit of detaching a text from the context, and thus suiting it to our own purpose without concern as to the drift of the writer, that the words are in every one’s mouth whensoever discourse turns on the invisible world.”
Resource
In other words, we don’t know a lot about a lot of things. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55: 8-9 ESV).
We don’t need to.
What the passage is talking about is the manifestation of God’s power. In prayer, we humble ourselves in reverence of His unmeasurable power.
Isn’t that what humbleness is? Humbleness looks at our own inadequacy in light of God’s greatness.
We take the focus off us and put it on God.
The Incomprehensibleness of Heaven
Melvill noted that Heaven is beyond our comprehension. He wrote, “Heaven is a mystery to the natural man. Its joys are such as lie beyond his comprehension; so that if described to him, they do not come home to his understanding. Its occupations are such that, when mentioned, they appear to him as if they must be burdens, so devoid are they of the elements for which he possesses any relish or taste.”
Resource
That being said, God reveals to disciples the essence of Heaven. We learn of the joy that awaits us.
We have been taught that we can’t imagine what Heaven will be like – and John’s Revelation doesn’t shed all that much more about what it will really be like.
Our Utter Incompetence to Understand What Heaven Is
In human form, we are incapable of totally understanding spiritual matters.
We aren’t as wise as God. He is all-knowing. We aren’t.
We know enough. We know we will live there for eternity with God – if we submit our lives to Him.
Oh, Ye of Little Faith
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5: 3 ESV)
We have little faith, so have no reason but to be humble.
There are times that we focus on what we will be like in Heaven. We like the perfection part, where there won’t be any more sin and we will be exactly as God wants.
But then we see the very first Beatitude. “Blessed are the poor in spirit …” (Mt. 5: 3 ESV).
We can have different definitions than what God has for this. Because of this, the verse seems to contradict itself.
But it doesn’t.
We would define blessed as being happy. It isn’t.
“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin” (Rom. 4: 7-8 ESV quoting Ps. 32: 1-2). Blessedness means we have been perfected.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Sin is not believing that Jesus is our Savior to save us from our actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
Glossary
To us, that is totally opposite of poor in spirit. We would define poor in spirit as having little faith.
It isn’t.
Poor in spirit has components of humility, contentment, submission, gratitude, patience, trust, and hope.
Rees noted that poor in spirit means we know of our spiritual need. We know we are nothing without Jesus’ saving power.
Resource
On further review, it would appear that those concepts are still on different ends of the scale. We know we aren’t perfected until we reach Heaven.
But humility is a big part of being poor in spirit. This speaks to our state of mind. It is also a big part of being mature disciples – which is what we are working toward until we are perfected.
It isn’t easy. Pride gets in the way of our growing into mature disciples.
We have to focus on God’s grace and mercy. We know we have done nothing to ear salvation. We know we deserve spiritual death.
Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart.
- Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
Glossary
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
When we are humble, we have the assurance that God will bless us. We will be adopted as His children.
This is not a once-and-done humility or a working through our humility process. Yes, we need to be humble in every stage of our walk with God, and it is something that grows.
Our pride should never convince us we are more [anything] than God. Insert whatever challenge you face.
We must always focus on His greatness and our inadequacy.
Come for Rest
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mt. 11: 28 ESV)
We only find rest in Jesus, so have no reason but to be humble.
We are so stuck on ourselves. We think we can do everything and be everything.
We just end up wearing ourselves out.
But then there are other ways of becoming weary. We face disappointments, trials that test our affections, a guilty conscience, struggles impacting our endurance, and setbacks we encounter when serving God.
All those can increase our doubts of whether our salvation is genuine.
Who do we call? Jesus.
When we humble ourselves and ask Jesus for His peace, He will give it to us.
May tied this to our topic of doubts. He wrote the person to whom Jesus was directing His comments was “… burdened with convictions of sin and the keen remorse of a wounded conscience.”
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The convictions and wounded conscience could be the result of doubts. Struggling with doubts regarding our salvation carries a huge burden. This is especially true when we perceive our ability to choose between right and wrong is not working correctly.
Jesus wants us to come to Him with our doubts. He wants to ease our burdens and strengthen us as we rest from the guilt and misery.
Making the Connections
Duryea had a great reminder. He wrote, “So far as you find restfulness and complacency in your own attainments, you may doubt the reality of your growth.”
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Ooo, baby. Don’t we think restfulness and complacency bring peace? It doesn’t if we focus on our own attainments.
If we are focusing on ourselves, we are not growing closer to God. If we aren’t growing closer to God, we are in Satan’s clutches. That creates a fertile ground for doubts.
How Do We Apply This?
- Imitate God’s character to remain humble.
- Evaluate the motivations in our hearts.
- Keep pride out of it.
- Appropriate balance of the sense of sin, guilt, and punishment.
- Always remain humble.
- Keep a balance of the sense of sin, guilt, and punishment.
- Grow in God’s grace and knowledge to grow in humility.
- Go to Christ as we need rest.
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Father God. We are nothing compared to You. Help us to be humble in all we do so that we may hold a correct perspective. Help us to grow in grace and knowledge. Amen.
What do you think?
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