Pride, Arrogance, Boasting, Power and Humility ***

HUMILITY
Imagine the most humiliating situation you could face. For many people, being observed totally naked in public would be the worst they could imagine. For others, it could be when they learn that something they had believed in, promoted, and invested money in was a total lie. Both of these situations describe how people feel about their religious life once they learn the following truths:

Most people in civilized cultures will be embarrassed and humiliated to have their private parts exposed to anyone — except for those with whom they are sexually intimate. This is why, throughout the Bible, God uses the symbol of nakedness to represent religion. He desires an intimate relationship with his people, but they have chosen to be intimate with religious leaders instead of with God.

God uses humility and shame to represent how we feel when we discover that our nakedness (i.e. our religion, our sin) has been exposed for all to see.

STUDY TIP: See this link for more understanding about nakedness and the sin of religion as introduced in the book of Genesis.

It is not for God’s sake that he instructs us to cover our nakedness because he already knows our hearts. Rather, his instructions are for the protection of people who will be aroused to become engaged in religion when they observe others doing it. That is why God has so many proscriptions against nakedness. ***

Returning to the issue of humility, we must acknowledge God’s many commands that his people should humble themselves.

Basically what God wants people to do is give up (i.e. sacrifice) their religious pride in exchange for the reward of hearing his spoken voice. The Bible represents this exchange in terms of being raised from spiritual death to spiritual life and as spiritual rebirth.

At first, making this exchange would seem like an easy choice. Who wouldn’t choose life over death? But quitting religion is not easy. There is an addictive, toxic effect of religion that makes it very difficult to quit.

Choosing to quit religion is a very humbling process that only a few religious people will decide to make. The following is a short list of the many ways that all ex-religious people will be humbled when the come to the end of their time of being religious:

Religion is sin.
They have been deceived into sinning by people whom they trusted.
They willingly sinned because their religious life fed their pride.
Even though their desire was to experience God and spend time with him, religion actually separated them from God. Furthermore, because they encouraged others to become religious, or more religious, they actively and purposefully separated others from God.
The only way to come to know and experience God is to voluntarily stop practicing religion and listen to his voice.
They were hypocrites because they said they loved God and pretended to seek him and be obedient to him, but they really loved the voices of religious leaders and were obedient to their religious laws.
They trusted man for instruction about God instead of trusting that God would instruct them himself.
The only way to know and experience God is to suffer the humility that accompanies a public admission that they once practiced sin but choose to practice it no more.

The list is expanded and amplified for religious leaders who must also suffer the following points of humiliation:

They were greedy for personal gain and healed the brokenness of God’s people superficially.
They were foolish, worthless, stupid shepherds who have led God’s people astray.
They were wise in their own eyes and in the ways of man, and did not know God’s ways.
They taught worldly wisdom and lies — not Godly wisdom.
They did not know the difference between pure religion and defiled religion.
Their knowledge of God was superficial — not deep.
Pride was their reason for becoming a religious leader.
They were Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil — not Trees of Life.
They had made names for themselves by becoming religious leaders.
They practiced public religion and encouraged others to practice public religion.
They taught from the literal Bible and did not teach others how to listen to God’s spoken voice.
Everything they did as a religious leader was flesh.
They misused the literal words of the Bible about sacrifices, offerings and tithes for personal, financial gain.
They were False Prophets, Pharisees and Scribes , Serpents, Devils, Satans, Demons, Evil Spirits, and Anti-Christs disguised as angels of light.

Again, this is only a short list of the many points on which religious leaders will be humiliated if they submit to God’s discipline. And it will not be easy because they are very rich in terms of their spiritual wealth.

These points on which humiliation must occur are companions to other exhortations to repent for practicing the sin of religion. Humility and repentance go hand in hand for those who choose to leave religion.

Repentance for practicing the sin of religion is the key step in that precedes humility. Humility and repentance are necessary to becoming born again because they are evidence that an evil, impure heart has been transformed into a clean, pure heart.

STUDY TIP: See HOW TO KNOW IF YOU ARE BORN AGAIN.

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