Devoting Oneself to Humility: Grace

Morning

(Pray)

The LORD works righteousness and justice

  for all the oppressed.

He made known his ways to Moses,

  his deeds to the people of Israel:

The LORD is compassionate and gracious,

  slow to anger, abounding in love.

He will not always accuse,

  nor will he harbor his anger forever;

he does not treat us as our sins deserve

  or repay us according to our iniquities. (Psalm 103:6-10)

(Worship God through this Psalm.  Thank him for one thing mentioned.  Praise him, saying, "Lord, you are. . . .")

Midday

And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.  But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.  

Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!  If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.  And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.  (Matthew 18:5-9)

(Think about welcoming a child or receiving someone as a guest.  Ponder the difference between that welcome as leading them astray or trapping them.)

Evening

In our ordinary religious teaching, the second aspect [humility from being a sinner] has been too exclusively put in the foreground, so that some have even gone to the extreme of saying that we must keep sinning if we are indeed to keep humble. Others again have thought that the strength of self-condemnation is the secret of humility. And the Christian life has suffered loss, where believers have not been distinctly guided to see that, even in our relation as creatures, nothing is more natural and beautiful and blessed than to be nothing, that God may be all; or where it has not been made clear that it is not sin that humbles most, but grace, and that it is the soul, led through its sinfulness to be occupied with God in His wonderful glory as God, as Creator and Redeemer, that will truly take the lowest place before Him.  (Andrew Murray, Humility, Introduction)


(How has God humbled you through his grace as opposed to through your sin?  What needs to be pruned from your life so that you can accept this grace for yourself and for others?)

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The law of Moses has long seemed a scattered collection of almost random laws and sayings to me.  I have not taken it too seriously because I have thought it had little to do with the gospel I now live under.  I have even thought that the law is opposed to the gospel.  Between these influences, I did not take much time or effort to understand the law, the wisdom, or the prophets.


Meditating on Psalm 119 changed all of that.  I saw and heard their love of God and his law.  I began to realize that the God who wrote the law was the same as the God of Jesus.  I began to realize that when he "made known his ways to Moses," his ways were "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love."  I saw that this was the way to understand the law and my God.  He is a God of grace.

The harshest punishments come to people who lead others astray.  A person who takes advantage of another person's trust, especially a child's, is severely punished.  In God's kingdom, this is also the case.  Jesus rightly saw that a humble person is also a vulnerable person.  Vulnerability is  an essential part of humility.  It also draws me into God's grace.


One of the most wonderful aspects of grace is how it frees me from self-condemnation and self-absorption.  Grace opens my heart up to gratitude.  Grace opens my eyes to the goodness of God's ways.  Grace allows me to rest in God.  When my sin is my focus, I find regret instead of gratitude, God's ways worry me, and I am restless.  I think vulnerability will help me to receive this grace instead of being preoccupied with my sin.


So I see this movement.  As I come to understand that God's ways are full of compassion and grace, I am willing to be vulnerable.  As I become more vulnerable, I can face my sin by embracing God's grace.  When I step out on the strength of God's grace, I am once again amazed at how he faithfully responds and upholds me.  God's grace and my vulnerability work together to form a life of praise and thanksgiving.


Lord, open my eyes to your compassionate ways.  Open my heart with vulnerability to you.  Fill me with your grace and wash out my sin.  Let me live to worship you.  Amen.