GodReflection: Lonely? —Glad you are here, you are family.
Humility is not easy. God’s way is never the wide easy road. Let’s think back to one of the most difficult dinners the apostles had with Jesus. It was just before Jesus’s last Passover. Then, he would be crucified the next day and leave the world.
He was about to show them and us the full extent of his love. The evening meal was being served. His friend who would betray him was at the table with his eleven other closet friends who desert him the following morning when he most needed them.
Jesus, their Lord, their friend, and their teacher, saw it was the perfect time to share a much-needed lesson with them and us. He stood up, wrapped a towel around his waist, bent down and with a bowl of water wash washed their feet.
Some objected, they couldn’t believe it. Never in the history of the world has a teacher, a master, shown such humility to his students–his followers. After their puzzled gazes he asked if they understood what had just happened and gave this explanation to them and for us.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35)
I identify with the old statement to the effect that some of us have more to be humble about than others. One of my favorite churches serves homeless people. From time to time the church bulletin lists prayer requests of these disenfranchised citizens. They are the humblest of prayers, asking only for necessities. Under their own steam, little good comes by the way they deal with life.
In sharp contrast when driving through suburbs with beautiful estates among green meadows, I often comment, “With such beauty, these people don’t even know they need God.” Obviously, I make my comment with tongue in cheek.
I too have comforts, education, and wonderful relationships, beyond my wildest dreams. The temptation is to believe I am responsible for my good fortune in life. After all, I work hard, attempt to make good decisions, and try to use my brain given to me by God. When such thoughts enter my mind, I need to grow my humility and reflect more of Jesus.
The truth is it all comes from God. Nothing good comes my way without God’s nod of blessing. More importantly, as a disciple of Jesus, when I think about what He did for me on the cross, my dominant reaction can only be humility.
What does humility have to do with life within the fellowship of Jesus’s church? Everything. I follow Christ who humbled himself, taking the form of man and dying on a cross. Humility served as the birth canal of the church.
I think of Paul the Apostle as he reminds believers to be “one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” (Philippians 2:3-4)
Paul is on a roll. He believes so intensely in the importance of humility that he breaks out in song, citing one of the earliest of Christian hymns:
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! (Philippians 2:5-8)
Church unity and warm fellowship will not happen through the brilliance of its leaders. It can only become a reality when humility replaces all loneliness and his likeness radiants within the fellowship of the church. It can only happen when each Christ follower is willing to stoop in humility, lift our eyes toward Jesus’s cross, and move forward to die once again to self.
A humble church is a fellowship of believers who trust Jesus, kneels at the foot of the cross, and lives in humble obedience to their Lord and Savior. When it comes to church, I don’t have to have it my way. Let’s allow Jesus to do it His way.
It is His church. As we grow in humility, we learn to refrain from allowing our personal opinions to interfere with the creation of comfortable space that makes it possible to serve others. By this we all contribute to the health of Jesus body and remove the loneliness of others and ourselves as we grow in humility.
It is a church humbled by the cross event that will catch the eye and the heart of its community. Let’s wear the cross deep inside our hearts. Lonely? Let’s Grow Our Humility
Stay tuned.
Gary J. Sorrells
A GodReflection on Lonely? Let’s Grow Our Humility.
God Reflection 