church was yesterday - here's what 1 pastor said

yesterday was Sunday & Sunday means "church", eh? lots of different stuff was going on in lots of different churches. Lots of stuff was said & taught in the name of Jesus.

of course, probably lots of stuff was said in the name of Jesus that pissed Jesus off.
For example, here's what 1 Protestant Pastor from Macon, GA had to say:

"African Americans are exceptions to the common brotherhood of man and are sensual and stupid, lazy, improvident, and vicious... an ignorant, degraded, indolent people... who could never be equal with the white man. The inferiority of the negroes was designed by their creator."

WHAT?!?

yeah, go ahead and blurt some expletives. i'm guessing God is right there with ya.

in case my intro was misleading, these words weren't preached in a church yesterday, but written by Pastor Ebenezer Willis Warren in 1864 in a book called Southern Slavery and the Bible: A Vindication of Southern Slavery from the Old and New Testaments (full book title/cover pictured to the right)

i barely brought myself to write the above excerpt from the book and the hundreds more like it i have in front of me would make you sick to your stomach... and again, i believe God would be nauseated right there with ya.

And this isn't a singular example of Pastors using the Bible to preach that not only was slavery right, but an incomprehensible view of the color of one's skin making one "better" or "less than".

so, it boggles my mind (as i'm sure it does yours) that a Pastor wrote this book & thousands more were preaching and teaching this stuff as biblical doctrine.

it makes me so angry that i can barely continue to put sentences together.

so, let's move on to the real point of my post before i have an anuerysm. (seriously as i write this my heart rate is going crazy and i'm all worked up.)
we all know that this Pastor and those like him are so wrong, in so many ways, on so many (every) point that we wouldn't even know where to begin to address all the jacked up problems. so, we won't even waste our time.
& that's not why i'm writing.

here's the point: it boggles my mind that Pastors were saying this stuff and were convinced this was what the Bible taught/God said. and that was just 150 years ago. (and really the same "theology" continued into the 1960s... and unfortunately, probably even today.) i'm sure this boggles your mind too.
the humbling question is what will boggle the mind of Pastors 150 from now about what i write/say/teach in the same way that this boggles my mind now?

i resolve to not be so arrogant & think that won't happen.

i'm trying to be humble enough to hold most everything in an open hand. because an entire culture was duped & deceived into thinking something we see as incomprehensible was actually God-honoring. they were somehow blinded to it.
(other examples of this same sort of thing could go on and on - the Crusades, executing heretics, etc...)

who are we to think we're not blindly doing something like this right now? what if we're participating in, defending, even preaching as biblical and God-honoring something that will soon be obvious to everyone as totally anti-God (like racism).

I’ll go ahead and say that 25% of the stuff I say & attempt to write/teach/preach even from the Bible is straight up wrong. and I can’t even tell you which 25% it is. [of course, if I could tell you that I just wouldn’t say it in the first place.]

and 25% is a pretty conservative estimate.

Just sayin.

the older i get, i'm becoming more and more EXTREMELY cautious of anyone without this kind of attitude.

***Here's the really big Question i would LOVE to know the answer to = what, specifically, will cause someone to be repulsed with what i said in 150 years? What will cause them to be repulsed by what you said? 
Mr. Pastor, what did you say in church yesterday that will be oh so obvious to a future generation that it's gut-wrenchingly wrong?

ouch.

that should hurt.
that should be a big of a slap in the face and a wake up call.

if it's not... if we can read this and just think "oh, i would never believe and promote something that awful."
if we find ourselves saying something like that... uh oh.

that's the kind of arrogance that will get us into big trouble.

that's the kind of arrogance that will cause us to miss all the abolitionists shouting "God created everyone EQUAL. what you're saying is SO jacked up. you're WRONG!"

So, Mr. Pastor Ebenezer from 100 years ago… I’m hatin on you knowing that I will probably be hated on 1 day too.

i just pray that what i'm jacked up about is not about something as horrid as what you were jacked up about.

(ok, that probly wasn't a very fun post to read. i'll be sure to post something light & fun tomorrow.)

for pastors tomorrow

i was struck by a comment my friend Jared left on one of my posts earlier this week. the post was about humility & part of Jared's comment said...

If many pastors were honest the prayer at the end of the sermon would sound more like this:
"Dear God,
That rocked just now.  That must have been one of the best sermons I've taught in a while.  I mean, even I was a little surprised by how well that went. Thanks for making me so awesome and for everyone getting to hear that.
In my name I pray,
The Pastor" 

whoa. i think that's a great comment to read on a Saturday night. may it be very different tomorrow morning all over the world.

we must be desperately humble. we are nothing without God's power. 

i get to speak a couple times tomorrow in a couple different environments. it will suck big time without God.

so, i just hope i can get out the way and let Him do whatever He wants to do.

you can change the world without cartilage

this is a BRAND new perspective for me & it's changing everything. i hope it will for you too.

All of us have circumstances that suck. things that happen that aren't fun and we WISH they didn't exist. There is a broad spectrum of these things = from things out of our control to the bad decisions we have made that create crappy circumstances in our lives. ALL of them we wish we were rid of.
We all have people in our lives we wish we didn't have to deal with. we cringe when we see them coming. There is a broad spectrum of these people too = from people who have wronged us in the past to people who are straight up jerks to us to people who just simply annoy us.

think about those specific people and circumstances for YOU right now. what are they and who are they? walk away from this blog to the other side of the room for 1 minute to make sure you have this in mind then come back...

______________________________

(are you a little bit riled up or stressed out now? sorry about that.)

i'm thankful for a lot of stuff and a lot of people. i think of myself as a pretty thankful person. but it seems ludicrous, backwards, and opposite to be thankful for the crappy things and the people who are crappy to me.

but this is the brand new perspective for me. Because humility is THE most IMPORTANT thing... because it's a pretty big deal, & because it's a must for changing the world... then i want it no matter what.

& as i look back on my life - the humility i have learned has mainly come from crappy circumstances and people who were crappy to me. hasn't it been the same for you? isn't that how you learn humility?

so here's my new perspective from the old school writing (all from different chapters) of Andrew Murray:

"But let us not be discouraged [when these crappy things come]. Let us look upon every person who tries or vexes us, as God's means of GRACE, God's instrument for our purification, for our exercise of the humility Jesus our Life breathes within us."

"Accept with GRATITUDE everything that God allows from within or without, from friend or enemy, in nature or in grace, to remind you of your need of humbling, and to help you to it."

"Accept every humiliation, look upon every fellow-man who tries or vexes you, as a means of grace to humble you. Use every opportunity of humbling yourself before your fellow-men as a help to abide humble before God."

that's hard to do. it feels very opposite of what i want to do. but, if humility is what i want most then i should be REALLY thankful for the "awesome" ways it is produced in me.
so thank you to all the circumstances and people that teach me humility. I see them as GIFTS... as "means of grace". i am genuinely excited about the man they are helping me become.

i'm confident that the reason there is no cartilage in my knees today is so that i could learn some humility. i can look back and see that losing the meniscus in my right and left knee was a crappy circumstance that would shred some pride out of my life... make me a little more humble.
it's very hard to be prideful about an ability that you no longer have. if you were prideful because you were an amazing singer and you suddenly had no more voice... it would be pretty hard to be prideful about the voice you don't have.
as many times as i've been bummed about having bum knees and all the limitations and pains... i look at that crappy circumstance with Gratitude. i want humility more than "menisci".

we should be thankful because without this humility we can't change the world. You can change the world without cartilage, but not without humility.

“Until a humility which will rest in nothing less than the end and death of self; which gives up all the honor of men as Jesus did, to seek the honor that comes from God alone; which absolutely makes and counts itself nothing, that God may be all, that the Lord alone may be exalted, -- until such a humility be what we seek in Christ, above our chief joy, and welcome at any price, there is very little hope of a religion that will conquer the world.” 

(Andrew Murray, over 100 years ago)

*Mr. Murray, i wish you were here these days... we need a revolution of your words, ideas, and passion.

what are your thoughts and comments about this whole humility thing?

that's dangerous (but i don't care)

i think the world can change. i think it should & it's supposed to. i think it's gonna. no doubt about that.
i would rather see it happen sooner than later.

i want my life to be about changing the world. i want to spend every day bringing the world-changing revolution. when i'm dead i want to look back on a life spent trying to change the world.

but i fully realize that is going to involve some dangerous stuff. dangerous on many levels.

a lot of things may be dangerous that we don't normally think of as dangerous OR they're not things i would have thought necessary in order to change the world.

like humility, for example. i've been writing about it a lot lately and i probably will be for a while.

humility isn't something that usually makes the top of the list when you are compiling necessities for changing the world.

but it is necessary.

without it there will be no world-changing revolution. not through us anyway. i'm convinced that humility is every bit as necessary (and even more necessary) than audacity to change the world. both have to be there. (i've already written on the uber importance of humility HERE, HERE and HERE.)

so, if that's the case then i want humility more than anything. because i want to see God's love and renown change the world more than anything.

so, i PRAY that whatever the cost God would help me be full of humility. MAKE ME HUMBLE. Shred pride from my life... every hint of it... until there is only humility left. DO whatever it takes to make that happen! because, 

unless it does = i will never be fully satisfied/overjoyed and i'll never be used like i could be to change the world.

but this is a freaking dangerous prayer and desire.

i fully realize that. and yeah, it's kind of the joke in some Christian churches - "don't pray for humility, or God might give it to you..." as in - God may have to BREAK you to humble you. so we think to ourselves - "don't pray for humility because the humbling process is... well, HUMBLING." (spelled P-A-I-N-F-U-L)

so, this is legit. if i want to be fully, 100% humble i know it's going to hurt.

but i don't care. and i don't mean that in a cavalier way at all. i'm a little scared. 

but i don't care as in i care MORE about being a humble man that it is worth the hurt and pain and humbling process that it will take to get there.

so, what if we all pray the "danger prayer"? what if we all went through whatever it took to be humble? what if we were just a whole bunch of broken, humble, audacious people?

i guess we might just change the world.

it's a pretty big deal

it's a big deal because...

“Without this there can be no true abiding in God’s presence, or experience of His favor and the power of His Spirit; without this no abiding faith, or love or joy or strength.” 

humility is what i'm talking about, by the way. still on this humility journey and will be for quite a while.

so, Andrew Murray says that without humility there is no - experiencing God's presence or favor or power of His Spirit or faith or love or joy or strength.

well, that's a pretty sucky life without all those things. (i'll write more about this later but that's why i'm saying crazy things to God like - "do whatever it takes to make me humble." i can't see any other way to happiness.)

AND humility is a pretty big deal because: 

“the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure.” 

wow. that's a pretty big statement, Mr Murray. and if you're right, then how do we get/have humility? what do we do? what even is it?

“it is simply the sense of entire nothingness, which comes when we see how truly God is all, and in which we make way for God to be all.”

those are the greatest words on humility i've ever heard. it's this yin & yang. us and God. we need to simply see ourselves like we really, truly are = NOTHING. and see God... even a glimpse... of Who He really, truly is - ALL.

boom. done deal. we'll never be the same. no room for pride then. pride is ludicrous. humility is the only thing for sane people at that point.

“humility is simply acknowledging the truth of my position as creature, and yielding to God His place.”

And just to remind us how big of a deal humility actually is (like we talked about in the previous post - "the most important thing")...

“Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God, and allows Him as God to do all.”

anybody starting to see how crazy important this is?

i'm desperate to be humble and kick pride out. i wanna do whatever it takes.

but somehow - we, our culture, the Church, etc... talk and think about it so very very little.

maybe we just need to be reminded that it's a pretty big deal.

THOUGHTS?

humility - the most important thing

(i set up these Humility thoughts HERE but just now getting a chance to actually blog about it.)
just trying to think through (by writing) the ideas about humility that are rocking my world right now.

Andrew Murray sets it all up by saying that "nothing is more natural and beautiful and blessed than to be NOTHING, that God may be ALL."
and that's a great summary of this whole idea of humility. nothing and all. that's the essence. me becoming nothing. literally humbling myself, emptying myself, to the point that i am 100% dependent on God... which lets Him be the ALL that He already is.
if there is still something of me in me... God cannot possibly be ALL in me. that's a tough thing to humble myself to the point that i empty me of me. rid myself of every trace of pride. (is it even possible? but i think that's the only way for God to be ALL and truly do His thing.)
the main idea Murray threw at me is that HUMILITY is the MOST IMPORTANT thing. and at 1st i think "no way." no way that's the most important thing in my life.
but i think i'm buying into that idea.

this is all i've been thinking about the last couple weeks. and you don't normally think of something like humility as being revolutionary... but it IS. i promise. it's a radical thing.
to us it feels like a thing of the past... it doesn't seem sexy or like it allows for our swagger so we throw it out.
but i'm with Andrew... it's maybe the most important thing:
"Our chief care, our highest [good], our only happiness, now and through all eternity, is to present ourselves an empty vessel, in which God can dwell and manifest His power and goodness."

& humility is the place of ENTIRE dependence on God. it' s a great place to be. but i think we have to think of it as our 1st order of business... the most important thing we can be in our day, because it's the ROOT of everything else we can do for God's glory.

Murray says humility is "the ROOT of every virtue... and so pride, or the loss of humility, is the root of every sin and evil." + "evil can have no beginning but from pride, and no end but from humility."
WOW. those are BIG time words! he's not messing around.

i was way wrong when i picked up this dusty old book that used to sit on my grandmother's shelf. it looks so old and boring. i just thought it would be nice to read what some old guy said 100 years ago. i thought it wouldn't be all that relevant. maybe it would be a little pious. certainly not revolutionary.

but tell me that this doesn't rock your world:
"The truth is this: Pride must die in you, or nothing of [the Kingdom] can live in you."

"Could you see what every stirring of pride does to your soul, you would BEG of everything you meet to tear the viper from you, though with loss of a hand or an eye."

whoa. maybe you can get a sense of why this Andrew Murray guy is jacking me up. really wrestling hard with this humility thing. because i can see how revolutionary and ALL-ENCOMPASSING/ ALL-IMPORTANT it is.

is it really the most important thing? i guess if without it, God can truly not be ALL and get His glory... if the lack of it leads to every sin... if it is the root of every good God does through us... then yeah, it must be the most important thing.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON HUMILITY?

even more mind-blowing stuff to come. lots more.
(just trying to process)

humility (a start)

humility.

not something any of us talk about that much.

it's not really a pop culture subject. or even a "pop church" subject. i haven't seen many books written about humility lately (although i did read & write about this one HERE and HERE a couple years ago.)

in fact, God used that above book to mess me up when it comes to pride and humility. God used the words in that book to point out the pride in my life. it produced a passion in me to desperately want to get all pride out of my life. i want nothing to do with it. i just want to be a humble guy.
but that's really easier said than done. we're all more prideful than we think. it's a sneaky thing, pride.

and as i've hopefully made strides over the last few years i constantly find that the more and more humble i hopefully become the more and more pride is uncovered in my life. it's like the more prideful we are the less of our pride we can even see. As we become more and more humble we see our pride more and more.
i hope there can maybe be an end to it.

since about 2006, i've made it a life long goal of mine to chase after humility as passionately as i can.

so, when i came across this book, Humility, that used to sit on my late grandmother's shelf, i picked it up. it made the final cut for my 2011 reading list and i just cracked it open last week at the beginning of our vacation.

and it has been rocking my world since page 1.

it's written by a guy named Andrew Murray (not the tennis player). i knew he was an "old" guy. i knew he was going to be one of my "dead mentors". i think i even quoted him during a sermon i did way back in college.

But that's about all i knew about him. turns out most of his ministry was in the 1800s (& trickled into the early 1900s). he was born in South Africa and lived pretty much his whole life there. and he wrote a ton of books and influenced a ton of people and had a hand in several influential movements. and check his sweet beard.

*One of the coolest parts for me is that is was my grandmother's book. she was an awesome woman who loved Jesus as long as i knew her. that was obvious. she died when i was 12, but i spent several summers at her house, so i knew her pretty well. never as an adult or even a teenager though.

When i opened up her book to read it a really old paper fell out. it was a (typewriter) typed paper she had put together to lead a Bible study at her church on humility. it was dated January 12, 1982.
pretty crazy. pretty awesome. like a window into the past. i wasn't born yet. i wasn't even thought of yet i guess. my grandmother wasn't even a grandmother yet.

and as i read this amazing book that has changed my life... i got to see all the stuff that my grandmother underlined and highlighted. i got to see the stuff that jumped out at her and influenced her life.
it's been like reading this book together with my grandmother.

and the book is pretty radical. it's revolutionary. i didn't know people said this kind of stuff back then.

i want to write more and more about this book in the coming days, but i'll sum it up by saying this: Murray basically says that Humility is the CHIEF thing. The chief mark of a true disciple. It’s foundational to all the other virtues.

boom.

the most humble man on the face of the earth (part 2)

"(Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)" - Numbers 12:3

that's a pretty hard core statement for a random parenthetical phrase in the middle of the book of Numbers. (you can read "part 1" from yesterday HERE.)
it seems God was just going along telling a story & then BOOM! He sneaks this in there... "oh, btw, this guy Moses is more humble than anybody else. period."

so, i went back and read and studied this passage for a few weeks. why does God put that phrase in there? He obviously wanted us to know this about Moses. i had a few thoughts as i wrote in my journal. (and many of the thoughts were convicting.)

1st of all, if anybody didn't need to be humble it was Moses. This joker made the Red Sea part like a Lawyer's hair by raising a stick. he was the leader of God's chosen people. He flipping talked to God up on a mountain, saw his glory which turned him white like the sun so the other peeps couldn't even look at him! oh yeah, and he brought down a few commandments from the mountain. God went on to say in Numbers 12 that He talked to other peeps in dreams and visions, but He talked to Moses "face to face!"
this guy was a larger than life leader and usually those kind of guys aren't that humble. but not only is Moses humble, he's MORE humble than anyone else on the face of the earth!

(you can read the whole passage here in Numbers 12.) his brother and sister were disrespecting him as the leader. that's not cool. Moses, as the leader probably needs to hop up and defend himself and put these guys in their place.

but it seems like Moses is not going to defend himself, so God has to. 

and from my study, i think this is one of the main points of the passage!
there is an instinct in me to defend myself when i am misunderstood. Moses was big time misunderstood and disrespected by his own brother and sister, but it seems like he was so humble God had to come down and stick up for Him! Wow!
(btw, Numbers 11 also shows Moses' humility - he didn't want to be the only one getting attention.)

*There seems to be a direct link between Moses' humility and the fact that he didn't stick up for himself!

i have so much to learn in this department. i can't stand it when people think something about me that is so untrue. i hate it when they misjudge me and it damages my reputation... my name. i just want to set the record straight!

but i'm learning more and more that this is just pride.

i think this random phrase might be in this story to say that Moses was humble because his critics didn't bother him. he was so humble that he wasn't concerned about his name. he didn't need to stand up for himself.

So, i am begging God to help me be humble. i want to be humble like Moses. i know humility is a dangerous thing to pray for, but i know the more humble i am the more God's name can be lifted up. the more i worry about my name the more it can squelch His fame. i so bad want to just let it go when i'm misrepresented or disrespected. i just wanna be humble and not stick up for myself like Moses did. and if God wants to stick up for me then that's cool too.

a couple other random thoughts i jotted down from this passage:
we need to honor our leaders and pastors! especially the humble ones. how ridiculous that Miriam and Aaron tried to read Moses' motives. they saw the most humble man on the earth as arrogant! wow. how bout a little respect for the leader?
God didn't like it very much either because He gave Miriam leprosy.

*So, Moses further shows his humility by begging God to heal her. Wow. i've got a lot to learn about humility. good thing Jesus was a pretty good example of that for me.

what are YOUR thoughts on humility and this whole passage?

"... than anyone else on the face of the earth."

i've written a few times about the Bible Experience that i like to listen to in the shower. i'm trying to "read" through through the whole Bible in 2010 while in the shower via the Bible Experience. (You can read some thoughts about that HERE.)

i really love it because the Bible was meant to be read out loud. i wonder if it all hits you better hearing it rather than reading it? That's the way it was read for THOUSANDS of years. it's just a recent phenomenon to read the Bible to yourself. i'm thinking it was maybe written in such a way to hit people more powerfully when it is read out loud?

that's what happened to me. I was "reading"/listening through Numbers and it was just in the middle of the story and then there is this crazy RANDOM phrase and it came out of nowhere and hit me like a lightning bolt:

"(Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)"

Wow. i want to be like this guy.

this phrase is so random it's even in parentheses! anyway, why don't you just think on that for a day like i did. let it hit you like it hit me.
i'll come back and write some thoughts tomorrow and i'd love to hear yours. you can read it for yourself in Numbers 12.

any thoughts yet?