By John Gipson
I read
of a young lady applying for a position as a housemaid. She
showed her recommendations to her prospective employer. After
reading them, the woman said to the applicant, “You certainly
have some fine recommendations here.” The girl
replied, much pleased, “I’m glad you like them. I wrote
them myself.”
Do you
suppose she might have been a relative of ours? We are good at
commending ourselves. It was
said of one preacher that he would “strut while sitting down.”
Paul
rebuked some of his enemies in the Corinthian church for
extolling themselves. He
wrote, “Not that we venture to
class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend
themselves. But
when they measure themselves by one another, and compare
themselves with one another, they are without understanding” (2
Corinthians 10:12).
What a
temptation it is to look around and say, “Well, at least I am
better than so and so,” and fall into complacency, while
patting ourselves on the back. It’s
always easy to find someone near us, against whom we show up
pretty well.
Rather
than measure ourselves with those around us, we are called to
a higher standard. We are
to press on “until
we all attain to…mature manhood, to the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ”(Ephesians 4:13).
With
Christ as our standard, all of us are quickly brought to
humility.
As
Christians, self commendation is both folly and dangerous. Timothy
was told, “Do
your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a
workman who has no need to be ashamed…” (2 Tim. 2:15).
It’s
God’s approval that really matters. How do
we measure up there?
- John Gipson, longtime minister and elder for the Windsong Church of Christ in Little Rock, AR; via THE SOWER, a weekly publication of the Arthur Church of Christ, Arthur, IL. Ron Bartanen, who serves as minister and editor, may be contacted through the congregation's website: http://www.arthurchurchofchrist.com
No comments:
Post a Comment