PART TWO HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU HAVE THIS CHRISTIAN GRACE of HUMILITY by Charles E. Whisnant

To have a spirit of humility I believe would be to be veiled over with a spirit of gratitude about what the Lord has seemed to have done in your life and ministry. Acknowledgment of the fact the you know in your mind, it’s the Lord who for His glory has given evidence of His blessings upon the ministry in which He has called you to perform.

When I have written these almost sixty articles, I confess that I have nothing to glory in. But to say that I am a nobody just might be true, but it’s not an act of humility The purpose of even writing them has been an act of humility. (Or stupidity, absurdity, senselessness, incompetence) For in reality they show a lot of weakness on my part. When you have been in as many places and worked for a lot of churches and pastors, as I have, it should indicate you have a behavior problem or some kind of difficulty with ministry.

So when you are asked about your life’s work, and you put them down on paper, or Word Perfect, it’s not a lack of humility that you do so. I have with purpose written what I have comprehended to be true. I have not tried to lift up myself in anything that I have done. The truth of the facts are, in analogy with other pastors/teachers/writers, etc. I would rate about dead last. My life words and work pale in comparison with most people. But that itself is not humility to even to say that.

I AM JUST A PEA IN A POD, "there is little real humility coming through that sarcasm, mockery, or humor"

HUMILITY
I believe the course that my life has taken me over the last fifty eight years has been with a lot of humility, and absurdity, and incompetence, and stupidity, and that also it is filled with failures and successes. I have done some of the most irresponsible things in this course of life, but on the other hand from the time of my salvation, I have had a consciousness that was Godward.

My mind set has always been with the view point of the presences of Christ in all I think and do.

I generally view the events in my life as the results of choices I have made I have always tried to do what I believed the Lord would want me to do. There was lack of wisdom, maybe, but nevertheless a choice that was made with the Lord in mind.

I love sharing what the Lord has put on my mind, it’s a mind set that has been there since 1963 when I was a Youth Pastor at Roanoke Baptist Temple. I have always wanted to teach and share what I have learned. It’s imbedded in my mind. It’s a chip that was planted there by the Lord I believe. I learned to share and to disciple and teach not only my self but others.

I love to be seen with a Bible in my car when I go to the drive thru. When I go to church I love to carry a notebook. I cannot take trip anywhere without three or six binders of articles. That doesn’t mean I am not humble. Some think you should be subdued, debased, embarrassed if you think someone else thinks you know something.

As a matter of fact few people in ministry believe you know anything. Why should they! You need to be a John MacArthur, or John Piper, or a Charles Swindoll. I am glad they write books and have tapes of their sermons.

But the Lord in His wise counsel has chosen me, Charles E. Whisnant, to be His servant, and to do and be as He has chosen, and I have tried to be that kind of person. No less or no more. I don’t think more exceedingly of myself than what you see. I desire to be the best that I can be, to know as much as I can learn. Admiration? Only in the fact that I have never quite quit, or given up.

Humility might be, knowing yourself as you truly are, but never letting others see you sweat, agonize, or perspire, boast, exaggerate, glory in your failures or success.

Humility might be, embracing how God made you, and accepting the role in life that you believe is what the Lord has mapped out for you.

Humility might be to show grace in life’s events.

• "I know that whenever God chooses a man for the ministry, and means to make him useful, if that man hopes to have an easy life of it, he will be the most disappointed mortal in the world. From the day when God calls him to be one of his captains, and says to him, "See I have made thee to be a leader of the hosts of Israel," he must accept all that his commission includes, even if that involves a sevenfold measure of abuse, misrepresentation, and slander. We need greater soul-exercise than any of our flock, or else we shall not keep ahead of them. We shall not be able to teach others unless God thus teaches us. We must have fellowship with Christ in suffering as well as fellowship in faith. Still, with all its drawbacks, it is a blessed service, and we would not retire from it. Did we not accept all this with our commission? Then we should be cowards and deserters if we were to turn back. These castings down of the spirit are part of our calling. If you are to be a good soldier of Jesus Christ, you must endure hardness. You will have to lie in the trenches, sometimes, with a bullet lodged here or there, with a sabre-cut on your forehead, or an arm or a leg shot away; where there is war, there must be wounds, and there must be war where there is to be victory." (C. H. Spurgeon)
• "I cannot agree with those who say that they have 'new truth' to teach. The two words seem to me to contradict each other; that which is new is not true. It is the old that is true, for truth is as old as God himself" -- Charles Spurgeon

Drafted by Charles E. Whisnant October 08, 2006 Checked by Charity