18 Feb Cultivating Humility
Last Sunday, Pastor Jason Finley preached the sermon: “Love and War,” from 2 Corinthians 10:1-11, and showed us that Christ’s love urges us to love those who are hard to love. To accomplish this, we must humble ourselves, stay in the fight against our true enemy, Satan, and love others with the truth.
Read: 2 Corinthians 10:12-18
This Sunday, Joel Smith will preach from 2 Corinthians 10:12-18 and will exhort us to live from the approval of God, not for the approval of man. As you prepare your heart for our gathering, let this devotional from Milton Vincent point you to boast in the Christ alone.
Reflect: “Cultivating Humility”
According to Scripture, God deliberately designed the gospel in such a way so as to strip me of pride and leave me without any grounds for boasting in myself whatsoever (Ephesians 2:8-9; 1 Corinthians 1:27-29). This is actually a wonderful mercy from God, for pride is at the root of all my sin. Pride produced the first sin in the Garden (Genesis 3:4-6), and pride always precedes every sinful stumbling in my life (Proverbs 16:18). Therefore, if I am to experience deliverance from sin, I must be delivered from the pride that produces it. Thankfully, the gospel is engineered to accomplish this deliverance.
Preaching the gospel to myself each day mounts a powerful assault against my pride and serves to establish humility in its place. Nothing suffocates my pride more than daily reminders regarding the glory of my God, the gravity of my sins, and the crucifixion of God’s own Son in my place. Also, the gracious love of God, lavished on me because of Christ’s death, is always humbling to remember, especially when viewed against the backdrop of the Hell I deserve.
Pride wilts in the atmosphere of the gospel; and the more pride is mortified within me, the less frequent are my moments of sinful contention with God and with others (Proverbs 13:10). Conversely, humility grows lushly in the atmosphere of the gospel, and the more humility flourishes within me, the more I experience God’s grace (James 4:6) along with the strengthening His grace provides (Hebrews 13:9). Additionally, such humility intensifies my passion for God and causes my heart increasingly to thrill whenever He is praised (Psalm 34:2).
“Cultivating Humility,” in A Gospel Primer for Christians, by Milton Vincent
Sing: Song List for Sunday
1. “God Is for Us,” by CityAlight
2. “Before the Throne,” Arr. Shane & Shane
3. “Behold Our God,” by Sovereign Grace Music
