{"id":13639,"date":"2017-06-13T01:00:20","date_gmt":"2017-06-13T08:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/?p=13639"},"modified":"2017-06-06T12:57:53","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T19:57:53","slug":"renewing-our-minds-for-rejoicing-pt-4-think-humbly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/2017\/06\/13\/renewing-our-minds-for-rejoicing-pt-4-think-humbly\/","title":{"rendered":"Renewing Our Minds for Rejoicing, Pt. 4 \u2013 \u201cThink Humbly\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Pastor James Lee<\/em><\/p>\n

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4:4-8)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To think well is to think humbly. And anywhere we\u2019re not humble, we\u2019re not thinking well. And to think humbly requires us to think reliantly, think prayerfully, so that we\u2019re refusing to be anxious or fearful about anything, trusting Him, and not ourselves. Remember v. 6 says, \u201cBe anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.\u201d<\/em> We need to dwell on that\u2026 prayerfully. If we\u2019re anxious, then we\u2019re not believing His promise, are we? The sooner we get a grip on ourselves that we\u2019re nothing, outside the grace of God, the sooner we\u2019re going to be rejoicing. Paul writes, repeats our Lord Jesus, don\u2019t worry! Anxiety is opposite of being primarily concerned about others. Prayer reflects and effects. Worry, anxiety and discontentment, Dr. Sam Storms, rightly says are all self-centered, rather than God-centered, when he writes,<\/p>\n

\u201cAnxiety is rooted in self, while prayer is rooted in God. Anxiety is the fruit of a narrow, constricted view of life. The only thing one can see is the problems or perplexities surrounding us. Prayer is the fruit of a broad and expansive view of life in which God is so big that everything else, even our worst problems and worries, shrink into insignificance. Anxiety is horizontal in focus. Prayer, on the other hand, is vertical in focus. That is to say, when you worry you are consumed with looking to the left and to the right, forward and backward. When you pray, you can\u2019t help but look up. Anxiety never raises your eyes above your problems, your situation and your circumstances. Prayer raises your eyes above and beyond yourself to God and His power. Anxiety looks to self to solve problems. Prayer looks to God to endure problems. When you are anxious, your circumstances and problems control you; they have sovereignty over you; you invest in them a power and authority to shape your life. Anxiety is an expression of fear. Prayer is an expression of faith. That is why prayer is an antidote to anxiety.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Realize anxiety is an indictment on God\u2019s flawless wisdom and a mocking of His infinite power. And that\u2019s not very humble, for the creature to say that, about the Creator, is it? We might not think about it this way, especially when we\u2019re struggling, but it\u2019s self-righteous arrogance. But the opposite is humility, which is to do as 1 Peter 5:7 says, \u201cCast all our anxiety on Him, because He cares for us.\u201d<\/em> The opposite of prayer is pride. But heartfelt prayer is an expression of humility. John MacArthur said, \u201cIf you are going to be stable in the tough times of life, it is born out of an absolute distrust of yourself and a total trust in the sovereign God of grace and power.\u201d<\/em> Spurgeon said, \u201cIf you believe everything turns on the free will of man, you will naturally have man as the principle figure in your landscape.\u201d<\/em> Then you\u2019re going to be disappointed, by putting all your hope in what people might provide you. Because the dilemma you\u2019ll come face to face with, is how weak and how fickle people are. And, then you\u2019re going to have every reason to be full of anxiety! When the Source of our joy is unshakeable, then our joy becomes unshakeable, and we get HIS peace.<\/p>\n

Question: if God already knows what we\u2019re going to ask and what we need, before we pray, then why do we pray? There are different biblical reasons, but one is that we need it, not Him. Prayer is not to inform Him, but to rely on Him, and to glorify Him.<\/strong> And a big reason why we don\u2019t pray well, is because we don\u2019t think well. We\u2019re not desperate enough. We haven\u2019t come to the end of ourselves, so that we\u2019re not expecting anything beyond the grace of God. We realize we don\u2019t deserve anything anyway, and what we do deserve, God\u2019s wrath, is not at all what we\u2019re getting. Thus, we haven\u2019t been cheated out of anything, we haven\u2019t received the short end of the stick or a raw deal. So we\u2019re not looking for kudos or appreciation or understanding from others. So, we will not be disappointed, only thrilled and thankful when we get anything good. And humble people are always thankful people! Because humble people are not thinking that they deserve something better, but discontent and angry and greedy people think they do. That\u2019s why Paul says we pray, \u201cwith thanksgiving.\u201d That\u2019s why we can be content, in hunger or in plenty. Do we not tend to be plentiful in requests, but minimal in thanksgiving? But if we know He\u2019s worthy, that He\u2019s already solved our biggest problem, then we\u2019re going to be habitually thankful. It\u2019s no surprise then that Paul says in Colossians 4:2, \u201cDevote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The irony is that we usually think that our complaining is due to our unhappiness, but in the context of the cross of Christ, very often, the truth is that our unhappiness sometimes is ironically due to our complaining. Spurgeon said, \u201cIf we complained less and were more thankful, we would be happier, and God would be more glorified.\u201d<\/em> FF Bruce on the flip side, warned us, \u201cLack of gratitude is the first step to idolatry.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Pastor James Lee Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":469,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pastors-corner"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/469"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13639"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13647,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13639\/revisions\/13647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lighthousebc.com\/beacon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}