humility

I've been reading Humility by CJ Mahaney, and it's a challenging book. CJ says that pride is your greatest enemy because to be proud is to contend with God for supremacy. He says that humility is your best friend because it attracts God and His grace. The best way to kill pride and cultivate humility is to focus on the cross of Christ.

Think about it:
All of us were slaves to sin, chained to a cruel master. We were completely helpless; there was absolutely nothing we could do to break free. We didn't even want to. Sin blinded us so that we saw our lives as the best there was. We couldn't see that we were enslaved. We were the worst creatures on earth.

But God so loved His creation that He sent His son Jesus to live on earth and die on the cross, in order to set us free. God provided a way for us to be delivered from slavery to sin. Yet even with that wonderful provision, we cannot believe in Jesus without God revealing Him to us. /Everything/ regarding salvation is God's doing. We contribute not even the minutest part to our salvation. It is all a gift from God. Unmerited and undeserved.

When I think about that I am ashamed of how easily I fall into pride, thinking I should have things differently than what they are. How can I contend for authority with God, when He so freely gave me the gift of salvation to which I contributed absolutely nothing!