We spoke in class Wednesday night about the armor of God as described in Ephesians 6:10-18. It struck me as odd that humility wasn’t one of the pieces of armor. Humility isn’t listed among the fruits of the Spirit, either. Yet, as I’ve grown in Christ, my awareness of my dependence and my indebtedness is becoming stronger and stronger. I’m not saying I’ve mastered the grace of humility, or even that I’m especially good at it. Just that I’ve come to value it more and more.
We love the imagery of the armor of God. Martial and extravagant, it inspires courage and strength as we picture a brave knight advancing toward entrenched evil. Certainly, no one should face this world without his armor. But maybe something needs to go on before the armor. The armor is very public: the realm of the town, the market square, and the arena. But the things under the armor are the realm of the private prayer closet, the retreat, and the wilderness.
A knight would never start pulling on pieces of armor without the prerequisite padding and undergarments. According to Answers.com, early medieval knights wore a padded garment called a gambeson under their armor. Made from strong linen, and padded with wool or flax, the gambeson had cords, called points, sewn into the shoulders, elbows, and other areas. Armor plates (including the breastplate) were attached to the gambeson by these points.
Could it be that humility is one of the necessary underthings that makes our armor bearable?
Colossians 3:12 says we are to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 1 Peter 5:5 also instructs us to clothe ourselves with humility.
We are shown an amazing depiction of humility in Jesus’ life and work. …being in very nature God, [Jesus] did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant… (Philippians 2:6-7).
Humility is becoming more and more comfortable as I walk along. And the Bible is full of it:
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).
-If a man can receive only what is given him from heaven (John 3:27), and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6);
-If we all, like sheep, have gone astray (Isaiah 53:6), and there is no one righteous, not even one (Romans 3:10);
-If, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8);
-If the Lord requires us to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8);
-If we who were not a people have been sought and bought and have received mercy and been made the people of God (1 Peter 210);
…should we not wrap ourselves in humility and gratitude before trying to fit our feet with the readiness of the gospel or even drawing the sword of truth?
After all, it’s his righteousness I want to wear;
It is faith in him by which we extinguish Satan’s flaming arrows;
It is his gospel we proclaim;
It’s his salvation with which we are crowned;
And it’s his truth that ties it all together.
Theology
Breaking Bread
Jesus invited his disciples to break bread with him at the last supper. There at the table, Jesus told them the bread, the bread that had been part of the Passover celebration for centuries, represented his own body, which would shortly be brutally slaughtered for them. In the process of bringing the bread to their lips, they were told it was Jesus’ own flesh they were consuming.
Did some of them balk? Did they hesitate? I might have if I had been there and had my wits about me. What he was saying was too vast to be absorbed.
We, down through the ages, are commanded to continue the bread consuming, wine drinking, person appropriating, life absorbing practice that Jesus initiated (actually consummated) that night.
With the benefit of hindsight, we understand we’re being invited to fully identify with Jesus, to take on his power and his nature, to subject ourselves to whatever change that plenty-potent morsel might initiate in our being, to declare out dependence, and remind ourselves of our victory, through Jesus’ life.
It’s Personal
“Believing that it happened is not the same as believing that it happened for you.”
-Gene Schandorff
Courage is Faith
“What it takes for someone to stand his ground when he is scared to death is an act of faith. Faith is an act of surrender, not to the challenge, but to the spirit in whom we put our trust to face the challenge with us and to take care of us no matter the outcome.”
-Peter Dunne (Emotional Structure)
Aquatic Mammals
Whales and other aquatic mammals live in the ocean but they must always breathe air. They may have many minutes’ lung capacity, but they – like us – are always just a gasp away from asphyxiation.
They must always bear in mind the provision for obtaining their next breath. It limits where they go and what they do.
Where and when will you take your next spiritual lungful of air?
Catalytic Leadership
The following devotional appeared in Spanish on the GenesisMesoamerica website: www.transformaelmundo.com on August 14, 2014.
He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” Mark 16:15
What does catalytic leadership mean?
In a fire, fuel sacrifices itself to mix with something foreign (oxygen) to create something new (fire). In the process, the cold is driven back and the darkness is driven out.
Once lit, fire spreads through all the fuel it can reach, one burning item creating enough heat to ignite something close to it.
So what keeps flammable things from bursting into flame? The room you’re in may have wooden furniture. There may be pieces of paper on the table or in a drawer. The walls may be made of wood or they may have flammable wall coverings. And we know there’s enough oxygen in the air to burn or we wouldn’t be able to breathe. Thankfully things don’t burst into flame all around us because there isn’t enough concentrated heat energy at any one place.
Catalysts allow chemical reactions to start when they might not otherwise. They speed up reactions by decreasing the energy necessary to get them started. Reactions happen faster because a catalyst controls the way molecules come together: the right ingredients, in the right proportions, with the correct orientation, with just the right speed (energy).
If we think about church growth as a flame, how do we make the flame spread?
As Christians, we give ourselves to reaction with God and become new creations. The hope it gives inspires us to spread the process to other people and the changes it makes in us attract those who don’t understand. In the process, the cold is driven back and the darkness is driven out.
So what keeps us from combustion? In the church, if each of us has a story to tell and a testimony to share, if we are all fuel ready to burn, why does revival break out only sporadically? Why do we seem to be inert, waiting for a spark? Maybe we could use a catalyst.
A catalytic leader is a man or a woman who accelerates church growth and the work of evangelism. He or she calls us to prayer, awakens us to our calling, equips us to testify and to teach, and facilitates our interactions with people who haven’t yet heard about Jesus. He or she concentrates the energy of evangelism by creating the most efficient arrangement of resources. Wherever he or she is at work, believers come together to seek God’s power and to equip and encourage one another. And new people learn about and accept Jesus and his saving work.
The right catalyst can turn a fire into an explosion.