The Essence of Humility

Humility, for me, has always meant thinking less of your self. I chose to practice humility as my spiritual discipline for this past week and going into it I felt confused. I never had a firm grasp of what humility was or how to practice it. How do you practice humility? I soon learned that humility is not thinking less of yourself but it is more of thinking of yourself less. To be humble you don't have to brake yourself or shatter your confidence in anyway, but just put others above yourself and do it without wanting or gaining anything in return. Philippians 2: 5-11 sets a tone for humility, at least in my eyes. It involves so much truth, but the part that affects me the most is when Paul says, "Christ humbled himself to death, even death on a cross." Christ chose to die for us, He came to share His good news and then to sacrifice Himself to pay our debt. This is the ultimate form of humility. Christ put the need of sinners, the poor, the women, the children, of all people before himself. This example truly pulled me down to reality. I in every way failed in humility. I am a selfish unsacrificial person. I challenged myself this past week to put others before myself and I failed. I tried and at times I did, I did put others first, but there were so many time where I didn't. You can't perfect humility in a week and probably in a lifetime, but you have to start somewhere.

I found toward the end of the week that to begin to practice humility you must first be content. As the Apostle Paul says numerous times through the Corinthians and his Epistles that we must be content with our lives. Paul was in prison and yet he was content with his life. He was content because he acknowledged that it wasn't his life it was, it was the life God had given him so he is content in it. Our lives our gifts from God in which we have no right to be selfish or caught up in appearance, but we a re called to be content. "A true Christian-in-me self is deeply at home in God and in its own skin." Being content is an aspect of humility that is at its core and where I found a need to begin. Being content with my life and my skin is hard, but it's possible. I have spent less and less time each day over the past week worrying about what I am going to wear and how I look. "The humble person is truly free."

The last part of humility I looked at was honesty. To truly be humble you must be open and honest with yourself. "Humility stems from an honest understanding of who we are." Richard Rohr once said, "Humility and honesty are really the same thing. A humble person is simply a brutally honest person about the whole truth. You and I come along a few years ago; we're going to be gone in a few years. The only honest response to life is a humble one." Honesty is the foundation of humility, when we can be completely honest with ourselves is when we are content with ourselves and can be a truly humble believer. Humility leads us to be honest and open to the constant need for grace. Humility opens so many doors to be and effective witness for God. Humility is the building block for all other spiritual disciplines and is a part of every aspect of our faith.

"Humble people let go of image management and self promotion. They honor others by making the others' needs as real and important as their own." Don't think to highly of your self or to poorly, but be content with the gift God has given you and then you can partake in humility and be an Evangelist that it a positive example set by Christ. Humility is the key to an evangelical life. Go out, be humble, be content, and honor God.

In His Name,

David Mann

Discipleship is KEY

In my Spiritual Formation class we read out of a book full of devotional classics. The book is composed of excerpts from various books and authors from any point in time. In our last reading we had three different passages on three different areas or ways of discipleship and out of those we are suppose to write on something that God put on are hearts to stand out in the reading. The excerpt that impacted me the most was from Dallas Willard's book The Spirit of the Disciplines.

Willard takes the view that if you are a Christian then you must become a disciple. In his text Willard discusses that the New Testament is a book of discipleship. He counts out that the word disciple is found 269 times, whereas the word Christian only occurs 3 times and was originally used to refer to a disciple. Willard says "the New Testament is a book about disciples, by disciples, and for disciples of Jesus Christ." If this is true then all Christians are disciples, right? Willard goes on to say that "if we don't make convert s disciples, then it would be impossible for us to teach them how to live as Christ lived and taught." So, we are not automatically a disciple of Christ when we become a Christian. According to Willard we must as disciples continuously make more disciples. This shows us that becoming a disciple is a process, a decision, a commitment. One point I want to stress from the passage is What a disciple looks like?

We have established that we must be a Christian first and then through a process we continue to grow into a disciple. For me this process starts with a call, a call to the Lord. Next we must make a lifelong commitment to study, obey, and imitate the example God sent us in His son. In Mark 10:28 Peter said "Look, we've left everything and followed you!" This show a commitment to the Lord to follow Him. They left everything for Him. Discipleship requires a sacrifice, it calls for you to suffer in God's name. The Apostle Paul wrote numerous times to have joy and comfort in your suffering, to offer you bodies as living sacrifices in God's name. A disciple's life does not belong to himself, but to God. A disciple looks like a person of heartfelt desire, a desire to imitate Christ in every aspect of his being. Discipleship is a process, starting with a commitment to follow God and then going deeper with God in relationships and through the word. It is a sacrifice we must make of ourselves, to let God have us fully for all time.

"The correct perspective is to see following Christ not only as the necessity it is, but as the fulfillment of the highest human possibilities and as life on the highest plane." - Dallas Willard

In His Name,

David Mann

How I am a Disciple

In my Spiritual Formation class we were given an assignment this week to blog about "How I was formed as a disciple of Christ?" Disciple making or becoming a disciple is a key aspect of living a christian life. Much of the New Testament is dedicated to demonstrate to us how t make a disciple, but more importantly how to become one. I can honestly say that I became a Christian when i was young, but i am still trying to be a disciple of Christ.

In my life there were two distinct people who helped me focus my life and taught me to be a disciple. The first one has been my best friend since third grade. He lived a life different from everyone else. Through the way he lived, talked, and interacted with others set an example for me to follow. He didn't lead me to Christ, but he certainly lead me to an eagerness to change my life to following God on a more committed level. The second person is my youth pastor, mentor, and friend. He has been there teaching me, guiding me, and challenging me for the past five years. He has helped me grow and has truly demonstrated and taught to me what a disciple of Christ loos like and is. These two people are the reasons for my life being a life of a disciple.

I learned about the Bible and the Resurrection and my sin and all the doctrine throughout my life, but none of it mattered until the past five or six years when I started to live as a disciple. There is a distinction between learning the theology and living it. It is now real to me, my need to confess my sin and praise God for His sacrifice. Once my life changed I felt God calling me into the ministry. This was a schock because I knew nothing about the Bible, but I did know that God is always with me and never does anything without a purpose. With that in mind and through a lot of prayer I followed Gods call for my life. I did so because being a disciple requires sacrifice and suffering, so even though I was scared and confused, I had to follow God, I had to go out of my comfort zone to do His work and bring Him glory as a disciple of Christ.

Now five years after turning my life over fully to God, I can honestly say I am fully committed to being a disciple of Christ. The final push for me has been disciplining a group of high school guys over the past couple of years. Seeing the growth in those kids ultimately impacted me in learning what a disciple of Christ was about. That is discipling others leading them to Christ and continuously growing them in bringing all the glory to the one true God.

In His Name,

David Mann

The Beginning

As my first official post on my new blog I was just want to say thank you to those who will be reading me. This post is just a tester and starting Monday I will be posting.

Thank You,

David Mann