Title: Girdle Your Waist with Humility
Contents
1. Words that begin
Although people think, “Everyone has the right to live well,” in reality, everyone has a duty to live well before God. Because God created human beings with potential, everyone has a responsibility to live a life of growing up and enjoying God's blessings and loving life.
In that sense, there is no greater blessing than meeting great parents and great leaders. However, just because we have been blessed with this meeting, does not mean that everyone is blessed. There are children who deviate from disobedience after meeting good parents, and there are people who meet good leaders and disobey and get no benefit or help. Therefore, it can be said that the attitude of the people being guided is more important than meeting good parents or leaders.
2. Submit to your leaders
After exhorting the elders who are leaders, Peter exhorts young people, or ordinary believers, for growth, blessings, and a loving life.
The first exhortation is to obey. Whether you are a member of the church, your child, or an ordinary person, your basic duty is to obey your leaders, just as they work in obedience to the will of God. Paul is also admonishing us to obey everywhere. The writer of Hebrews said to the church members, “Be obedient to those who lead you and be submissive, for they watch for your souls as they are accountants. It is of no benefit” (13:17).
From the point of view that human beings must constantly mature and grow, and in God's providence to reap what they sow, there is nothing more important than submission to the leaders.
Those who obey the leaders gain the spiritual gifts and powers they possess, the character and characteristics of leadership, the abundance of wisdom and knowledge, and so on, and thus become greater. In addition, it makes parents and leaders feel more rewarding, and allows them to study and guide more with joy. Also, it is to give joy to God who makes you reap what you sow.
However, those who disobey the leaders only grow in instinctive selfishness, so they can only become pathological people who only know themselves. In addition, we have no choice but to be judged by God, who makes it difficult for leaders and ultimately makes them reap what they sow.
Beloved, please believe that obeying the leaders who work according to the word is the only way to grow and to live lovingly with God's abundant grace and blessings.
3. Girdle with humility
The second admonition is to gird yourself with humility. In other words, to grow, to enjoy blessings, and to live a loving life, we must surround ourselves with humility like a belt.
The reason to be humble is that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Proverbs 18:12 says, “The pride of a man’s heart precedes destruction, and humility precedes honor.” Proverbs 18:12 says, “The reward of humility and the fear of the Lord is riches and glory and life.”
I will introduce the story I read in ?Pulpit and Ministry?.
After graduating from Solver University, Pohangari became president of France. When he was president, the 50th anniversary of Dr. Lavis' education was being held in a grand way at Solver University. Dr. Lavis, who went up to the podium for the expedition, was startled. It was because President Pohangari was sitting in the back seat of the students seat, not the guest seat. I hurriedly went down from the platform and tried to bring the president to the stage. However, the president finally declined and said, “Sir, I am a student. Today’s protagonist is only the teacher.”
The hall exploded with applause, and President Pohangari became a more prestigious president.
What kind of humble person can enjoy such wonderful honor, riches, glory, and eternal life?
A humble person is not a person who is incompetent or helpless, but someone who fundamentally recognizes his own shortcomings before Almighty God and seeks God's power and wisdom. This kind of awareness is only possible when you have spiritual power, so the more you increase your spiritual power, the more humble you become. In other words, the truly humble person becomes more humble as they receive grace.
As T. K. Abott said, “The more his knowledge or spiritual insight improves, the higher his ideology becomes. Thus, he becomes more and more aware of his own shortcomings.” W. Barclay wrote, “Humility is only possible when you have the courage to face yourself without the rose-colored glasses of self-drama, self-praise, and narcissism. will,” he commented.
A humble person always has his head and heart open to everything, including the leader, for the promise and love of self-growth and blessings, whereas the proud person is tightly closed. A proud person is caught up in the delusion that his knowledge, experience, and judgment up to now are all, absolute, and right. Thus, a proud person will always show contempt toward everyone. But in fact, self-absoluteness and contempt for others stem from the fear of being denied or broken by God or other people, spiritual knowledge or new knowledge.
In order to break pride and be humble, you must first of all know that everything about yourself is relative.
A tortoise went to buy shoes on a market day and saw a snail. The tortoise said, “Hey, get on!” because he felt sorry for the snail that was crawling so slowly. The tortoise, which had been going for a while, saw the slugs go slowly this time and said, “Hey, get on! As soon as the slug climbed onto the turtle's back, the snail said: “Hey, hold on tight. It’s so fast.” (Kim Woong-rae)
The proud man must humbly admit that there is knowledge, experience, and judgment better than his own, and that his own things may be wrong. Otherwise, God will see you as an enemy and fight back.
Disobedience and pride are two major obstacles to growth, blessings, and a life of love.
Everyone, if you humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, please believe that the time will come when God will surely exalt you.
4. Cast All Your Anxieties on the Lord
The third advice is to cast all your anxieties on the Lord. Casting all anxieties upon the Lord is the proper attitude of life for the humble person who humbles himself under the mighty hand of God. In all life there are bound to be concerns. However, no matter how serious a concern may arise, the person of trust is not.
On the other hand, even if only a trivial concern arises, an untrustworthy person is so anxious that they cannot eat or sleep, let alone work, inflate the concerns or create new concerns. What's even worse is that you might be enslaving yourself to worry in that way.
It is often said that we have no choice but to worry about our own problems, but it is clear that worrying worsens problems rather than solves them. To put it bluntly, worry is not an absolute thing. If you don't, who doesn't argue, and there are people who don't? The Lord said, “Who of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his stature” (Matthew 6:27).
Instead of worrying, we should look for a solution. do you have a way If you cast all your worries on the Lord, God will take care of you with love and concern. Please trust us to solve it yourself or give us the power and wisdom to solve it.
5. Conclusion
Everyone has a responsibility to live a loving life, enjoying growth and blessings that are desirable in God's sight. We earnestly pray that all of us will live a life of submission to our parents and leaders, gird ourselves with humility, and cast all our anxieties on the Lord.
(Poongseong Methodist Church. Book: Complete Commentary on 27 New Testament Books/ Interpretation of Difficult Scriptures I, II/ Salvation Before Jesus Came/Paul’s Understanding of Man/ Prosperous Prayer/ Seasonal Sermonbooks/ Sermonbook 18. T. 426 -3051)