Friday, February 3, 2006

 

A Mark of True Spirituality

 

For if you just listen and don't obey, it is like looking at your face in a mirror but doing nothing to improve your appearance.  You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. —James 1:23–24

 

I have had the opportunity to meet many Christian people over the years.  I have had the opportunity to sit down with many Christian leaders, household names, if you will, in the evangelical world.  And I can say that, without reservation, the most spiritual people I have met have always been the most humble.  They were not proud, not arrogant, but humble men and women of God.

 

It was after years of walking with the Lord that the apostle Paul referred not to himself as the chief of all saints, but rather the chief of all sinners (see 1 Timothy 1:15).  This was not a man who had gone deeper into the pit of sin, but a man who simply had been looking into God’s mirror and saw the depravity of his heart—even as he was still being conformed into the image of Christ.

 

If you are a true believer, if you are truly a spiritual person, if you are really growing in your faith, then you will be humble and open, always realizing there is so much to learn.  This is the mark of a person who really wants to know God.  A truly spiritual person will always say there is so much more to learn, there is so much more in his or her life that needs to change.

 

In contrast, the self-deceived person, the person who thinks they are spiritual, will really not be open to counsel.  They will not be open to teaching.  They think they know it all, which only shows how little they know.

 

Copyright © 2006 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.

 

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996.  Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189.  All rights reserved.

 

More by Greg Laurie: http://www.harvest.org/devotional/index.php/5.html