Humble Humblers

This year our college class at H(umble)AFBC went to Glorieta, NM for collegiate week (a huge conference with awesome worship leaders and speakers). During free time in Glorieta we play, (and dominate) the sports at Glorieta. Well, the people from last year apparently knew and remembered our matching shirts from last year, or maybe they just remembered that we destroyed them in football, or maybe this was totally unintentional and I'd like to think that people were jealous of our mad skills, but a team from Arkansas made shirts that said "Humble Humblers".

This is how we should be. Humble. When I was reading from Matthew this morning, I started thinking about this concept. The main focus of the scripture I read this morning was on humility.

1. Matthew 6:1-4
Jesus is telling us that we need to give to the needy, but that when we give to do it in secret. As the end of verse 4 says, "then your Father, who sees what is done in secret will reward you". Jesus is saying that public acts are great, in fact he commands us to give and to do good deeds. Remember, "As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead" James 2:26

2. Matthew 6:5-13
Jesus is saying that we should pray in our room with the door closed rather than standing openly in the church or on the street corner. The reason that Jesus is saying this is not to condemn public prayer, for He Himself prayed publicly, but back in the day Jews would stop everything they were doing to pray and He was concerned that one's internal motivation would be the central concern. By shutting the door, the person (or group) would be more focused exclusively on God.

3. Matthew 6: 16-18
Jesus is talking about how important it is to fast, but to do it with the right motives. He says that Christians need to wash the ashes off of our faces when we are fasting so our intentions aren't to publicize our physical hardships. Rather, we are to wash our faces so our motives are not corrupt.

These three chunks of scripture are scary to me. I had to really think about these and make sure my intentions are none other than to please and praise the Lord through my actions. I think we all struggle with humility, and will continue to struggle with it for the rest of our lives. This is why the Lords advice is to almost hide our actions so we aren't tempted to boast, or perform these acts for selfish reasons. Let's be the Humble Humblers (or College Stationers or wherever-you-are'rs)!

Happy day :)