Humble Yourself

The letter of James is a perfect example of the perversion of Scripture I recently heard, “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there will be differences."  The rich and the poor, hearers and doers, those who show partiality, those who emphasize faith and those who stress that works are important, are among just a few of the differences that exist between believers, and are addressed in this letter.

As I shared in my previous blog, some would rather avoid conflict as they tend to believe it is nothing other than destructive.  But, I contend conflict is inevitable in any relationship, especially in the church; and that is has the potential to be constructive.  Why this other attitude?  James gets right at the heart of what results in our differences becoming a problem.  It is a lack of humility.

Humility, James says, causes us to judge our brothers and sisters in Christ and to speak evil of them (4:11).  The lack of humility grows on us as we experience success, prosperity, acquire possessions, status, and reputation.  These are of the world and not the reward of a faithful servant of God.  After awhile, we develop a "friendship with the world," we become attached to these things, and they result in a sense of pride as though they are due to our own efforts, rather than the outcome of our obedience and service.

Our pride then puts us in conflict with others in the church.  We begin to see ourselves as different, perhaps even more blessed than our brothers and sisters, more spiritually mature than they.

James writes, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble (v. 6).”  There is nothing wrong with assuming the honor, but the glory belongs to God.  We are to live our lives in submission to Him, to resist the temptations of the enemy, to humble ourselves to the One who is mighty to save.

God's favor is intended to bless others not to make them feel inferior or lesser than us.

O God, who resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble: grant us the virtue of true humility, where of Your Only-begotten son showed in Himself a pattern for Your faithful; that we may never by our pride provoke Your anger, but rather by our meekness receive the riches of Your grace.

Godspeed, Phil

Loving Conflict

A general theme I have been dealing with in the last few weeks, within myself and with others, has been the theme of conflict.  In general, the problem is that some believe conflict can be avoided and, or conflict is destructive.  Neither have to be true.

This past week, I met with a few men and one of the men confessed he sometimes lied to his wife to avoid the conflict.  Every man there admitted he often failed to share certain things with his spouse for that very same reason.  It prompted me to go home immediately after the meeting to talk to my wife about some things I had been avoiding myself.

I continued to observe this theme in several sessions of marital counseling the rest of the week.  By and large, many feel this way about conflict.  When did we become this way and why is it wrong?

Once again, I had to look at myself and examine my own heart.  I realized that my experience of conflict growing up was that it was destructive.  It was frightening and often led to unwanted results.  I recognized that I have a tendency to avoid conflict and to be overly careful with the use of confrontation, even as a counselor or spiritual director.

A friend of mine once told me how he had become aware of a flaw in his own character and confessed it to some friends in a small group setting.  One of the members of the group stated he knew it was a problem and was glad my friend had come to realize it.  Rather than hearing what he probably expected, my friend asked him, “How long were you going to allow me to remain in my sin before you said something?”

In Scripture we are told we will be held accountable, not only for our actions, but for our careless words (Matt. 12:36-37), and for what we didn’t do that should have been done.  James writes (4:17), “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”  Jesus tells us the right thing to do is to rebuke a brother who sins (Luke17:3), “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault (Matt. 18:15).”

“Confrontation is a loving and appropriate challenge.  It’s not pointing a finger at sin.  It’s pointing to the truth that sets us free (HopefortheHeart.org).”  We cannot leave our brothers and sisters in Christ in their sin, and hopefully they won’t leave us in ours.  In my next blog, I will provide some tips on how to handle confrontation in the manner Jesus intended.  But for now, notice how you tend to avoid conflict and why that may be true for you.

Godspeed, Phil