Our desire to be accepted can cause us to call attention to ourselves when we need to find our acceptance in knowing how much God loves us. A cowboy church lesson.
By Jesse Horton / Cowboys of the Cross
Micah 6:8 says this: Mankind, He has told you what is good
and what it is the Lord asks of you: to do justice, to love faithfulness, and to be humble walking with your God. (Translation mine)
We all generally know what is just – that good is rewarded and evil is punished; justice is the law of God, which also tells to abide by the law of the land. We are to love faithfulness – we keep the promises we make and are careful to follow and obey the instructions of those to whom we are accountable. Being humble in our walk with God means we don’t think of ourselves – we love God, we love people, and we don’t need accolades or point to ourselves at all. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less – or not at all.
Humility is a hard thing to grasp. We can be generous, giving to the poor, purchasing and handing out tracts or Bibles, hospitable to the outcasts, care for the sick and elderly, and look out for the widows and orphans. But the moment we make much of our selflessness – even if only in our own minds – we are no longer selfless; we have forsaken a humble walk with God! At the core of everything we do, we can find the desire to be loved and accepted by our peers, overlooking the need for humility.
Jesus has some great advice on this in Matthew 6:1-4. “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of people, to be seen by them. Otherwise, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So whenever you give to the poor, don’t sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be applauded by people. I assure you: They’ve got their reward! But when you give to the poor, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (HCSB)
Jesus reminds us here that the problem is not that we want to be loved and accepted, but WHO WE LOOK TO for love and acceptance. We all struggle with feelings of inferiority – some more than others. The entirety of our adolescent existence seems to revolve around peer group-jumping to figure out which group we are most comfortable being liked by and associated with, and sometimes the decision is made based on who accepts us and affirms us the most; we’re really selfish!
Here’s the point: The beginning of knowledge and wisdom is the fear and respect of God. When you realize that the eternal creating Father of the universe set his affections on you before you were created – before you could even have a performance mentality – all this strutting about and posturing for ourselves and for others ceases. We know that our value does not lie in the way our peers perceive us, or even in the way we perceive ourselves. No, our value lies in who our Creator says we are, and he says our value is a direct result of whose image we bear (Gen. 9:6 – Whoever sheds man’s blood, his blood will be shed by man, for God made man in His image.).
God loves you. Now go out and do justice, love faithfulness, and be humble walking with God, and don’t let a lack of humility rob you of an eternal reward.
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