humility

I read this book a little over 2 years ago and it was like a kick in the teeth. I read it on a plane ride from L.A. back to Charlotte and I was radically changed on that plane. I was given the book in L.A. and then got to meet its author - C.J. Mahaney. He was extremely humble - go figure. He signed my book and then looked at me with a big smile and said, "I hope it serves you." It was pretty cool. CJ is a straight up PIMP... I love that guy. He's got this aura like he's your dad and full of wisdom... or something like that (+ he looks a little like that Picard guy from Star Trek back in the day right?) - And yeah, he's my theological homeboy!

This book is truly awesome! It's one of those books I try to review every month or 2. It's that great. It was quite an experience and life-changing thing for me to read it. It's a must-read for everyone. Now that I think about it... I can't remember why it's not in my top 10 list to the right. (if you haven't read it you need to and should go buy it here.)

This is a very trimmed down list of my takeaways. I've got 12 pages in all. Just send me your email address and I'll send you my full 12 pages of takeaways if you like what you see...
Below are just some random quotes and takeaways from Humility: True Greatness:

- “genuine humility requires a radical redefinition of success.”
– “There’s something you can do to attract more of God’s gracious, undeserved, supernatural strength and assistance!” = be humble!
- “The pleasures of humility are really the most refined, inward, and exquisite delights in the world.” – Jonathan Edwards
- “It is evident that man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he has previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself.” – John Calvin [if you followed that it was pretty pimp]
*DEFINITION* = “Humility is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness.”
- would others say I'm humble?

I do have A LOT to be humble about! [just think about that one]
– it’s crazy how incompetence and pride go hand in hand! It’s illogical, but “pride seems to have a strange and sure way of ignoring logic altogether.”
* “At every stage of our Christian development and in every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride is the greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend.”! – John Stott
- “Pride is itself the essence of all sin.” – John Stott
- Interesting = “from God’s perspective, pride seems to be the most serious sin…nothing God hates more than this.” [but this is logical because God cares most about HIS supreme glory and pride attempts to screw that up.]
- Why does God hate pride so much? = “Pride is when sinful human beings aspire to the status and position of God and refuse to acknowledge their dependence upon Him.”
- * ouch = “the proud person seeks to glorify himself and not God, thereby attempting in effect to deprive God of something only He is worthy to receive.”
– “You and I hate nothing to the degree that God hates pride.”
- “God cannot bear with seeing his glory appropriated by the creature in even the smallest degree, so intolerable to him is the sacrilegious arrogance of those who, by praising themselves, obscure his glory as far as they can.” – John Calvin
– pride = “the greatest disturber of the soul’s peace and sweet communion with Christ; it’s the most difficult sin to root out, and the most hidden, secret and deceitful of all lusts.” – Jonathan Edwards
- “Pride undermines unity! Show me a church where there’s division, where there’s quarrelling, and I’ll show you a church where there’s pride.”
– “Pride ruins pastors and churches more than any other thing.” – Mike Renihan

– “pride is a groundless thing, a brainless thing, the maddest thing that can exist.” – Charles Spurgeon
– I must “turn upside down my entrenched, worldly ideas on the definition of greatness.”
- our culture defines greatness as = “individuals motivated by self-interest, self-indulgence, and a false sense of self-sufficiency pursue selfish ambition for the purpose of self-glorification.” -> BIG contrast with biblical definition = “serving others for the glory of God.” [Jesus came to serve]

- “I must consider how I can daily, diligently, and deliberately weaken my greatest enemy [pride] and strengthen my greatest friend" [humility]
– “Fill your affections with the cross of Christ, that there may be no room for sin.” – John Owen
* “There is only one thing I know of that crushes me to the ground and humiliates me to the dust, and that is to look at the Son of God, and especially contemplate the cross. Nothing else can do it. When I see that I am a sinner…that nothing but the Son of God on the cross can save me, I’m humbled to the dust….Nothing but the cross can give us this spirit of humility” – Martyn Lloyd-Jones
- All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross, that we shrink to our true size.” – John Stott
***“How can anyone be arrogant when he stands beside the cross?” – Carl Henry

– “Purpose by grace that my first thought of the day will be an expression of my dependence on God, my need for God, and my confidence in God.”
**“The humble are genuinely care free.”**
- “Where there’s worry, where there’s anxiousness, pride is at the root of it. When I am experiencing anxiety, the root issue is that I’m trying to be self-sufficient. I’m acting independent of God.”
- My PRIDE is what keeps me from totally trusting and depending on God.
– “every time I claim to be the ‘author’ in my life and ministry of that which is actually God’s gift, I’m committing cosmic plagiarism.”
- “whatever successes I experience, learn to immediately transfer the glory to Him.”


Those takeaways are from the 1st half of the book. I've got tons more I wish I could share but I was just trying to pick out a few things. I'll post the 2nd half tomorrow.