1 - Introduction - Living like a real Christian 2 - Blessed are the poor in spirit | Page 6

be better than others is something that I would consider to epitomise the
carnality of our own human nature.
Back in the Garden of Eden, Cain’s pride was hurt when he saw that his offering
had not been accepted by God and his first reaction was for vengeance. He could
not stand it that somebody had done something better than him. This powerful
desire within every one of us is one of the reasons that there is so much heart
ache in the world, dysfunction in our families and crisis in our churches. God’s
answer to this is all too often found in a portion of humble-pie.
Enemy TWO: Culture. We live in a culture where self-elevation and selfimprovement at the expense of others is found everywhere you look. Our
culture feeds all of the bad that there is in enemy one. We teach our kids songs:
“I am the king of the castle and you’re the dirty rascal.” We watch movies that
seldom elevate the humble. We are taught to climb the professional ladder even
at the expense of others. We justify it by saying “it’s a dog eat dog world”. I have
often heard people saying a quote which they think comes from the Bible: “God
helps those who help themselves”. I challenge anybody to find this verse,
because the truth is that God helps those who can’t help themselves. If we were
able to help ourselves and perform our way into heaven, then Jesus would never
have had to die. The reason He died is so that we can come face to face with our
own sinfulness and then cry out to Him for deliverance from the fact that I am
my own worst enemy.
Prayer Thought: Take a few moments today to consider what we have just been
speaking about. Won’t you recognise afresh our proneness to self-righteous
thinking and, have a look if you will, at the way that our culture seems to affirm
that it’s ok to elevate myself above others because after all that’s how we need to
make life happen.

Thursday
Reading: Daniel 5
Today I will give two more enemies to humility.