For Sunday April 24, 2022:
NOT SELF-IMAGE BUT CHRIST-IMAGE
Proverbs 11:2 (NKJV)
When pride comes, then comes shame; but with the humble is wisdom.
In Why Leaders Can’t Lead, popular management consultant Warren Bennis wrote, “Magnanimous and/or humble people are notable for their self-possession. They know who they are, have healthy egos, and take more pride in what they do than in who they are. They take compliments with a grain of salt and take intelligent criticism without rancor. Such people learn from their mistakes and don’t harp on the mistakes of others . . . True leaders are, by definition, both magnanimous and humble.”
Solomon agreed, saying that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (Proverbs 3:34). Humility precedes honor (Proverbs 15:33) and, when coupled with the fear of the Lord, brings “riches and honor and life” (Proverbs 22:4).
By humility, however, the Bible doesn’t mean a low self-image. We aren’t to put ourselves down or nurture an inferiority complex. We’re just to think of Jesus more often than we think of ourselves, and we’re to put the needs of others before our own. Today, try keeping a window before your face instead of a mirror.
Humility does not consist simply in thinking cheaply of oneself,
so much as in not thinking of oneself at all—and of Christ more and more.
KEITH BROOKS
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 