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HOW TO ESTEEM OTHERS MORE THAN SELF
Good morning. While reading the scriptures associated with this article, I began to think about how so many of us gloat when someone get separated because they are not a sheep. Then the Holy Spirit said, that shouldn’t be. We shouldn’t gloat because someone is going to hell because of their wrong doings. It should hurt us. The Bible tells us apart of love is to not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoice in truth. It should be our desire for all to come to repentance, as the Lord do. The Lord tells us in Luke 19:13 to occupy till He comes. I looked up “occupy” in the Greek Strong’s Concordance and it means to carry on a business of a boss as it was him. In this case, the Lord is saying to do as He did. Jesus didn’t rejoice over His enemies going to hell. He prayed for them even while He was dying on the cross. He ate and ministered to sinners. He healed sinners. He forgave them. Too many take the fact the attend church every week, have a title/position in church or work, or have money and a lot of things and feel they are better than others. When that isn’t the case. Jesus died for all of us; not just for those who are good or doing good. He died for the murderer, the thief, the rapist, the molester, the adulterer, the homosexual, etc. He died for us all. And if we can receive Him (NO MATTER WHAT WE’VE DONE) then we have an awesome opportunity to be reconciled back to God and live with Him in His Kingdom. It’s not for me or anyone to say who can live or die; Who can go to Heaven or hell. None of us should want anyone to go to hell. Jesus didn’t. It’s His desire for none to perish (2 Peter 3:9; Matthew 18:19). Wouldn’t it be ashamed we did all these good works on the earth and think we are going to Heaven. But when we come to the face of Jesus and expect to get in, but instead He says I know you not you that work iniquity (Matthew 7:21-23). He says that because we think we’re getting into Heaven based on our works and merits instead of what He did. Jesus is the ONLY reason we are made righteous.
1 Corinthians 8:11-12; And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died? But when ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ.
HOW TO ESTEEM OTHERS MORE THAN SELF – Andrew Wommack Ministries
Matthew 25:40 “And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
MATTHEW 25:32-46
When a kind act was done to someone in need, Jesus said it was done unto Him. The Lord deeply feels our hurts. When someone is neglected, Jesus says He is also being neglected. We have a high priest who is touched by the feelings of our infirmities (Heb. 4:15). When we hurt, He hurts. When we are blessed, He is blessed. The God of the universe is intricately involved with every detail of our lives.
How can we esteem others better than ourselves when really we think we are better than others? Some people are better athletes than others. Some are better businessmen than others. Some are better speakers than others, and so forth.
First, we need to recognize that our accomplishments don’t make us better than others. There is a difference between what we do and who we are. Better performance does not make a better person. A person’s character can be severely wanting even though his performance is good.
Secondly, to esteem someone better than ourselves simply means to value them more than we value ourselves. To some that may seem impossible, but it isn’t.
That is exactly what Jesus did. If Jesus, who was God in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16), could humble Himself and value our good above His own welfare, then we should certainly be able to do the same. It can happen when we die to self and live to God.
If we think only about ourselves, we will be selfish. If we get out of self and think more about the benefit of others than the benefit of self, then we will be selfless. It’s a matter of focus.
Love and Humility
Story about love and humility: How love can change a person:
There was this woman who was married. Her husband died and left her three corporations. She also had two children from this marriage. She was a basket case because she was left with 2 small children and 3 corporations where she didn’t have any business experience. One day she went into this donut/coffee shop and a man came up to her and told her he was God. He told her her name and said if you would worship me, I will solve all your problems. This woman wasn’t born again so she married him and worshiped him. She followed him and thought “this got to be god”.
SN: If someone you never met comes up to you and tell you your name or something else you know you haven’t told them don’t mean they are from God. I experienced something like that several years ago. I had a thought about something concerning the Lord and when I went to church a person I knew had demons controlling them stated almost word for word my thoughts I had earlier that morning. The Lord told me she did that to get me to believe she was following God. I also heard a man say he had a dream that was not from God and the next day this false prophet (a person) he never met came to him and told him that dream he had was from God. This man almost fell for it until the false prophet said something that was contrary to the Word of God. Because someone, maybe a stranger, comes to you telling you something they should not know, don’t mean they are from God. The Lord tells us to try the spirits to see if they are of Him (1 John 4:1; Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world). This story about the woman isn’t about trying the spirits but I couldn’t tell the story without adding that because so many of us get deceived because someone come to us and tell us something they shouldn’t know. The story about this woman is about love and humility. Now back to the story.
Well, this woman married this man and worshiped him. The marriage was terrible. This man was abusive toward this woman and threatened to kill her children. He said if he ever saw them he would kill them, so they stayed in the basement. One day the children sneaked up to the kitchen to get something to eat and the man tried to kill them. A week before, the lady became born again so she had people from her church come to the house to help. The police was already there and had them separated on the lawn. The people from her church called this disciple of Jesus over to talk to the woman. The people told him to tell her to leave him. But he told her she can leave because the Bible says if an unbelieving spouse is please to dwell with you then you can stay with an unbelieving spouse. He then said based on the fact her husband abuses her shows he isn’t pleased dwelling her, so she is free to leave. But the woman said “but”. Then the disciple told her she could stay if she wanted to because it’s just the devil in him telling him what to do. He also told her that she has greater power dwelling inside her by stating “greater is He that’s in you than he that’s in the world (1 John 4:4)”. He further told her if she would draw on what Jesus put on the inside of her, there’s a possibility she could turn this situation around and change it. The woman was astounded and said “you mean there is hope”. He told her love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8). So she decided to stay. Before you get angry with the Lord’s disciple, understand it’s our job to tell the truth. Anyway, the people that brought him was angry with him. But the woman came to work for him and he began to teach her the Word of God on pride, strife, and contention. During the teaching she began to think about why he treated her like that. She found out when he was born his family dedicated him to the devil. So he was demon possessed and brought up in voodoo from childhood. So when she got this she began to have compassion on him. Keep in mind the Lord Jesus was never moved by people that was demon possessed; He just simply cast them out. Even the disciple who was teaching her had a hard time with her compassion and Godly love she now had for her husband. Well, they went to a pastor for marriage counseling that was a friend of this disciple. When they got there the pastor asked to hear his side of the story. The husband lied and accused her of everything he was doing. He said she broke my neck, she poured hot oil on me, she tried to kill the children, she howls at the moon and demons choke him. All the things he did to her, he lied and said she did them to him. The pastor believed the husband and shouted “you divorce this woman”. Then the pastor’s wife calmed her husband down and said let’s hear the other side of the story. Then the woman began to talk, instead of defending herself, she said “I used to think he was my problem and I was mad at him. But the Lord showed me that it wasn’t what he was doing that made me mad. But it was what’s on the inside of me; my pride. God is working on me and I am changing”. Not once did she defend herself. When her and her husband got back to the car, he was shaking and said “why didn’t you defend yourself; why didn’t you say anything”. She said “Jesus has already set me free. I love you and it’s not about me. God has met my needs. I came here to help you and if running me down helps you, it’s fine with me”. After that her husband lost his power to call up demonic power and bark at the moon. Within a few weeks he said “your power is greater than mine”. And he moved out. Within 6 months he got born again and they got back together.
The power of God’s love. Many may call her stupid, but her acts actually shows strength. Anyone can fight and defend themselves when someone lies on them. But will we win in the end? No. Love NEVER fails. Now, when you think about this man, don’t compare yourself with him and say you would never do this because that’s judging him. Praise God for his change. But think about how much the Lord has loved you and forgave you.
Proverbs 17:14; The beginning of strife is as when water first trickles [from a crack in a dam]; therefore stop contention (argument; strife; conflict) before it becomes worse and quarreling breaks out. Because she walked in God’s love in the end she won. Her husband also won and gave his life to Jesus Christ.
Jesus Tried Her Faith
JESUS TRIED HER FAITH – Andrew Wommack Ministries
Matthew 15:27, “But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it unto the dogs.”
MATTHEW 15:21-39; MARK 7:24-37; 8:1-10
It is very clear in scripture that Jesus was sent to fulfill God’s covenant to the Jews. However, it was equally clear that Jesus would open up faith unto the Gentiles. Jesus certainly knew this, and had already ministered to numerous Gentiles without the apparent disdain that we see here with the Syro-Phoenician woman. Jesus could not have been forced into ministering to this woman’s daughter if it was not His will to do so. Therefore, His silence and rough answer to this woman must have been designed to accomplish a positive result.
Humility is an important ingredient of faith. This woman was a stranger to the covenants of promise and had no right to demand anything. Jesus’ silence and then comparison of her to a dog would certainly have offended an arrogant person, and it is possible that for this very reason, Jesus tried her faith. Jesus didn’t need to do this with the centurion in Luke 7:6-7 because the centurion had already humbled himself.
An integral part of faith is seeking God alone with your whole heart. If we are concerned about what people think and gaining their approval (or honor), we will never take a stand in faith for anything. After all we might be criticized for it. This one thing has probably stopped as many people from receiving from God as anything else. You cannot be a “man-pleaser” and please God at the same time. Satan uses persecutions to steal away God’s Word and, thereby, stop our faith. To see faith work, we must say with Paul, “let God be true, but every man a liar” (Rom. 3:4).
About Humility
ABOUT HUMILITY – Andrew Wommack Ministries
John 6:15, “When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.”
Jesus “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). The temptation for Jesus to submit to the crowd and exalt Himself must have been there but He didn’t respond to it. He came to do the Father’s will and not His own will (Jn. 6:38). He immediately withdrew from everyone and spent all night in prayer with His Father. Prolonged prayer is an antidote for the temptation of pride and will work a God-type of humility in your life.
In Galatians 2:20, Paul is preaching a death to self, but it is very important to notice how this death took place. Paul said he was dead through what Jesus did. He experienced this death by simply reckoning what had already happened through Christ to be so (Rom. 6:11).
There are people today who have taken the “dying to self” doctrine to an extreme and, instead of being free of self, they are totally self-centered. They constantly think of self. It may be in all negative terms, but it is still self-centered. A truly humble person is one who is Christ-centered. Dying to self is not a hatred for self but rather a love of Christ more than self.
There are false religions that preach a denial of self. We need to be not just dead to self, but alive to God. A focus on the denial of self without the enthronement of Christ leads to legalism. True humility is not a debasing of self, or a hatred of self, or our accomplishments. It is simply an awareness that all that we have and are is a gift of God. Therefore, only a person who acknowledges God can operate in true humility.
Servant Power
SERVANT POWER – Andrew Wommack Ministries
Mark 4:41, “And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
MARK 4:35-41
When God created this physical world and all of its inhabitants, He gave mankind authority to rule and subdue His creation. Although God still owned the universe and all that was in it, He gave control of the earth to man.
When man sinned, he began to use this power against God’s wishes. God did not ordain all the terrible things that have happened throughout history, and yet He did not take back man’s right to dominate the earth. Instead, He became a man and took back that authority to Himself by conquest. After Jesus’ resurrection, He said in Matthew 28:18, “…All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth,” and then He gave the great commission to His disciples, thereby conferring that authority upon them, also. Jesus becoming flesh was absolutely essential for gaining all power (or authority) in heaven and in earth. Jesus was a “God-man.” As stated in 1 Timothy 3:16, He was God manifested in the flesh, which is a great mystery.
Jesus came in the power and authority of His Father to point men to the Father God. Jesus existed before His advent on this earth in the form of God and was equal with God; yet, He humbled Himself and became a servant while here on earth. He did not come to promote Himself but to give Himself as the way unto the Father.
This is radically different from the way so called “great men” present themselves. The Roman Caesar of Jesus’ day proclaimed that he was God and demanded worship. Lesser leaders ruled by exalting themselves over the people they governed. But, Jesus showed us that “whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mt. 20:26-28).
He Left Judaea
HE LEFT JUDAEA – From Andrew Wommack Ministries
John 4:1,3, “When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized disciples more than John…He left Judaea.”
MT. 4:12; MK. 1:14; JN. 4:1-3
This is an interesting passage of scripture. On the surface, it might look like Jesus was running from a fight. Now that John the Baptist was out of the way (he had been imprisoned), it was inevitable that the Pharisees would attack Jesus.
One thing we can be sure of is that there was no fear on our Lord’s part. On other occasions He demonstrated that no one could do anything to Him if He didn’t allow it (Lk. 4:29-30; Jn. 7:30, 44-46; 8:20, 59; 10:39).
Therefore we can assume that Jesus left because He knew it was God’s will. On another occasion when His half brothers dared Him to go to Jerusalem and confront the Pharisees, He told them that it wasn’t time for Him to go yet (Jn. 7:1-6). A lesser man would have been intimidated into showing His superiority.
Jesus was the most selfless person who ever walked the earth. He did not come to earth for Himself, but for us. If He would have defended Himself, we would have never been saved. The humility of Jesus was surely interpreted by some to be weakness, but in truth it was love. Not love for Himself, but love for a dying world of which He was the only hope.
GOD’S IDEA OF GREATNESS
GOD’S IDEA OF GREATNESS – From Andrew Wommack
Luke 3:20, “….he shut up John in prison.”
MT. 4:12; MK. 1:14, 17-18; LK. 3:19-20; JN. 4:1-3
John spent 30 years preparing for a six month ministry, followed by one and a half years in prison before he was beheaded. Many people would not consider his life very successful, yet Jesus said John was the greatest man who was ever born (Mt. 11:11).
John’s greatness didn’t lie in his own success, but in the success of another. John stirred up the hearts of an entire nation in expectancy of their Messiah. The ministry of Jesus owed much of its success to the work of John. John had prepared a people to meet their God (Mal. 3:1).
In our celebrity conscious society, few people want to be the backup singer or the announcer who introduces the main speaker. We have adopted a mentality that unless we are in the limelight we have failed. That’s not the way the Lord looks at things.
When the Lord passes out rewards in heaven, we may be shocked to see how He evaluates greatness. Many people who did not receive recognition while on earth will shine like the stars in eternity. The Lord will judge our works on what sort they were and not what size they were (I Cor. 3:13).
HUMILITY BEFORE HONOR
DIY - One Room At A Time 