Starting Over: The Attitude of a Man of God - Part 2
Click here for Part 1!
2. A Correct Attitude about God
If we just took the first half of Matthew 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit”, we would be going around saying, “Oh, poor me. I am nothing; I am nobody,” and trying to repress everything that God had given to us. We would become introspective and paralyzed.
But the second half of the verse says, “Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven [Kingdom of God c.f. Luke 6:20]”! All of the resources in the Kingdom of God are available to those who are truly dependent and have sane realistic attitudes about themselves as servants of Christ, knowing that without Him they can do nothing. They are rich in God!
There is a beautiful perfect liberty in the ones who are poor in spirit, but rich in God. They are free. They are liberated to work in the Kingdom, to be men and women of God.
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as
being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.
— 2 Corinthians 3:5
Our sufficiency when it comes to the work of Jesus Christ must be from God at work in us. We must have a “both-and” mentality: we are poor in ourselves, but we are infinitely rich in God!
This is an attitude which can really affect our prayer lives.
Our friends Carol and Keith Plait were married in the States and stopped in London on their way to Nigeria. Because Keith had to go back to Nigeria and he had his visa, he left first. But it seemed as though Carol just could not get her visa. Every day she would go down to the Nigerian embassy only to be told, “Come back tomorrow,” and this went on for a couple of weeks.
Leila and I were praying, “This dear couple have only been married a few weeks and they are separated. Dear Lord, give her a visa …” One day, Carol came into my office crying and I thought, “Oh Doug, quit playing around.” So we got on our knees and we prayed in Jesus’ name, “Lord, there is no reason that we have to expect You to give her this visa, except that we are praying in Jesus’ name, in Jesus’ righteousness.”
Carol got off her knees and went down to the embassy. That day, the man behind the desk who had been giving her a hard time, tormenting her week after week, smiled and said, “Today, I am going to give you your visa, and I’ll even call the airline and see if we can get you on a plane tonight.”
——————————
We are poor in ourselves but infinitely rich in God!
——————————
When we are poor in spirit, we realize how poor we really are, and that drives us to God. That’s where we have to begin. We have to come to the end of ourselves and be driven to God.
I remember Leila saying to me when she was ill with cancer, “You know, darling, I’m not satisfied just depending on the grace of God. I want more than that. I want God Himself.”
And in the Scriptures she found the verse she was looking for, 2 Corinthians 12:9 (TLB):
Each time He said, “No. But I am with you; that is all you need. My power shows up best in weak people [the poor in spirit].”
That meant so much to her, those last weeks and months.
When it comes down to the basic realities of life and death, right down to rock bottom, you want one thing more than anything, and that is Jesus Christ. You realize, “This is what I need. I need Him.”
——————————
We have to come to the end of ourselves and be driven to God.
——————————
I am glad to be a living demonstration of Christ’s power instead of showing off my own power and abilities. If there was one man who could show off his own powers and abilities, that was the apostle Paul, probably one of the most brilliant and gifted men in the history of mankind. But he did not rely on his human abilities, as great as they were. He had learned that in the work of Christ, he was poor in spirit, and rich and sufficient in Christ alone.
If you want to be a man or woman of God, you must have the same basic attitude: I am poor in myself but I am infinitely rich in Christ.
3. A Correct Attitude about Others
What then should be our attitude toward others? Here are two more verses in the TMS:
Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.
— Philippians 2:3-4
One day, my dear wife gave my kids a lecture about belittling one another. As soon as she finished this fine sermon and the three oldest ones were quite conscience-smitten, little Chris said, “Well, why are you saying all of this? How can I belittle anybody? I am the littlest!”
That’s it. You can’t belittle anybody if you realize you are the littlest. That’s the best commentary on that verse I have ever heard.
What does it mean to “esteem others better”? The word “esteem” means to prize or value. It doesn’t mean they have to be more gifted or more proficient. It simply means you prize them more dearly than yourself.
Esteeming someone better is not just a matter of your attitude. It also involves action – actually trying to make them better. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 13:9,
We are glad when we are weak and you are strong. And this also we pray, that you may be made complete [perfect].
How can you do this? Just obey. If God says it, do it.
If I am having problems of rivalry or comparison or esteeming myself better, I just start praying for that other fellow. I say, “Lord, You bless him more than me. Lord, what can I do to promote him?” And I just keep praying that. That’s hard on the ego! I find that my flesh doesn’t like that, and I don’t have to pray very long before it’s pretty well sorted out. My flesh is afraid that if I pray too long, God might bless him too much!
Let no man seek his own, but each one the other’s wellbeing.
— 1 Corinthians 10:24
If I am esteeming him better, prizing him more dearly, taking on his point of view, and if I am trying to seek his well-being, I am a humble man. I am reaching out horizontally to build up and perfect the other person, to promote him, and God will bless that.
But if I am trying to get on top of him, God is going to resist me. It’s not the way of the cross. It’s not the way of Jesus. It’s not New Testament. It’s just plain worldliness. It’s not of the Kingdom of God.
——————————
Esteeming someone better is not just a matter of your attitude.
It also involves action—actually trying to make them better.
——————————
Not esteeming others better than oneself is, I think, the biggest problem on the mission field, in the Navigators. A new missionary comes, and he just cannot esteem the older missionary better than himself. And the older missionary, with all the fresh input from Lorne Sanny and Skip Gray and all the Regional Directors, just can’t esteem that new missionary better than himself, because he feels he has a better understanding of the people, the culture and all the rest.
I used to think that this was just an American problem. I used to say to myself (please forgive me, I had a dirty rotten lousy attitude), “Why in the world don’t these guys build more character into those people? We are not going to do this in Europe.”
We’ve got thirty missionaries out in the field now. And when I go to visit a young European missionary, say in Africa or somewhere, I see the same situation. It’s not an American problem; it’s a human problem. And I am the worst one of them all, because I think that I’ve got more answers than they have. I’m guilty.
Dick Hillis, my senior missionary, told me when I went out to Formosa, “Doug, when I went out as a missionary to China, my senior missionary said to me, ‘Dick, your biggest problem on the mission field is going to be your fellow missionary.’ Doug, he was wrong. That was my second biggest problem. My first biggest problem was me: my pride.”
So I made this little vow when I got to Europe after a term on the field: people can have problems with me, but by the grace of God, I am not going to have problems with them.
How to be Humble
I almost hesitate to go into this last point: how to be humble.
This is the third time in my life I’ve spoken on this subject, and every time I am going to speak on this, I think, “Oh no, Doug, don’t become the guy who spoke on ‘Humility and How I Attained It’.” Then as I pray about it, I think, “What’s keeping me from talking on the subject? It’s my pride.” You just can’t win when it comes to humility, you know, it’ll get you one way or another.
I consider humility to be inadequacy and dependency on Christ. It’s not something to be developed or discovered through introspection. Instead, it’s just one look at yourself and then a hundred looks at Jesus.
I’ve had quite a few people ask me, “What should I work on to be humble?”
Don’t work on being humble. 1 Peter 5:6 says,
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God.
God is sovereign and He’s got a mighty hand. God is going to work on you being humble. He is going to bring circumstances into your life that will humble you—if you are sensitive to Him and His sovereignty, and what He’s trying to teach you.
He led the children of Israel for forty years in the wilderness. Why? To humble them. And to make them look to God for their sustenance, manna. That He might make them know that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God! For forty years, that’s what they experienced (Deuteronomy 8:2-3).
The sad thing is that God is working on us all the time, but so often we are not even aware of it.
——————————
God will bring circumstances into your life
that will humble you—if you are sensitive to Him and His sovereignty,
and what He’s trying to teach you.
——————————
I can think of circumstances in my life that God has used to humble me that make me weep, and I can think of those that really make me laugh. I have been chuckling for two and half years over one. About six months after Leila’s home-going, I took Chris, my little ten-year-old boy, on a trip with me to Germany and the Netherlands.
One day, we had finished our Navigator business and I had the evening free. So I called up the ambassador of the Netherlands, whom I had witnessed to and whose family was on visiting terms with ours. I told him that I happened to be in town and just wanted to say “hi”.
“Come on over for dinner, Doug.”
“Well, I have my little boy together with me.”
“Just bring Chris along. We’ve got some dinner guests, but we’ve got plenty. Come and join us.”
So we went to his mansion.
Now he is a very wealthy man – one of the three men in the world who has an original Rembrandt hanging in his living room. Seeing this with all the other priceless arts and antiques, little Chris’ eyes just got bigger and bigger. When we sat down at a huge table in a beautiful dining room with Winston Churchill’s silver candlesticks in front of us, his eyes got round as saucers.
Then a maid came in dressed in a crisp black uniform and served us our food. She served the ambassador first with the roast beef, and he took two pieces. The guest of honor was next and she took two pieces.
Then it was my turn. I love meat and so I picked up three pieces. Just as they were right over my plate, Little Chris said, “Oh Dad! Not three!” The Lord has wonderful ways to humble us. There I was, turning about twenty different colors of red while everyone was laughing.
Little Chris realized that he had blown it and so he decided to try to redeem himself. The last vegetable that was served happened to be corn. Chris loves corn. He wanted to show his appreciation but somehow, it just didn’t come out right. He said, “Oh boy, corn! At last, something I like!”
——————————
God is working on us all the time, but so often we are not even aware of it.
——————————
Let me share just one more story, one that made me cry. It illustrates what God does – faithfully leading us in every circumstance of life.
A friend had offered our family an apartment on the Spanish seacoast for a summer holiday. We drove there. The kids were little at the time, and only one of them could swim, so we bought little inflatable armbands which would allow them to float in the water.
Our first day out on the beach, we had a wonderful time. We had a picnic lunch and the kids splashed in the water. They were a little scared but they soon got used to it. We packed up in a hurry, got in the car and drove back to the apartment. But as we unpacked, we realized the armbands were missing. Leila remembered that she had put them on top of the car while we were packing so she drove back to try to find them while I took care of the kids. She came back in tears. They were nowhere to be found. “Our holiday is going to be ruined … our kids won’t learn to swim … they’ll be afraid of the water …”
In two days, every one of our children was swimming on their own.
God takes us through circumstances to strip us of props until He is the only One left. Then He teaches us to do things with Him that we’ve never done before.
We may be poor in spirit, but we are drawing from unlimited divine resources.
‘Every circumstance, every trial is a friend,’ James says.
Welcome it as a friend. God is teaching us humility.