Considering The Blessing of Humility

In our day and age humility is not seen as a blessing. We live in the age of the big ego. This is the dawning of the age of narcissism. Our social media usage seems to stroke our pride as we seek after likes.

I‘m aware of the irony. I’m writing this on a blog, part of social media, hoping people will read it. But I’m hoping they will go beyond this blog post to the book I’m writing about: The Blessing of Humility by Jerry Bridges.

Jerry Bridges has written many books that I’ve found helpful in the course of my life as a Christian and a pastor. This is one of the last books he wrote prior to his death. I was unaware of its release until seeing it in a clearance sale. Good for me, but a sad reflection on society and even American church culture. This is a book too many of us need to read.

Pride is like bad breath, everyone knows you have it before you do. The struggle against pride is one that is a daily affair, if we are paying attention. Over time I’ve read a few books on the topic including Humility: the Forgotten Virtue by Wayne Mack, and Humility by C.J. Mahaney. I used Mack’s book for our Men’s study at one point.

In Bridges’ book, he looks at the Beatitudes as a description of humility. Humility is one of the twin traits of mature Christianity. The other is love.

Bridges notes that in Jesus’ day, humility was looked down upon in Roman culture, the dominant culture of the day. Before moving into the Beatitudes, he addresses some key texts including 1 Peter 5 which joins precepts and promises.

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” ⁶ Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,…

Humility is the metaphorical clothing we should wear as we appear in public. We are to be humble in our relationships with others and with God, in keeping with the two great commandments upon which hang the whole law. While humility seems off-putting and working against our advancement in life, God offers promises of grace and glory for those who humble themselves in this way. There is promised blessing for humility.

Bridges view of the Beatitudes is one of what a sanctified person looks like. While our failure to possess these characteristics as we should points us to Jesus who perfectly manifested them for imputed righteousness, we must not stop there. Like Mark Jones, Bridges sees this as a description of imparted righteousness in sanctification. The Beatitudes reflect whom Jesus is making us as He conforms us to His likeness. Thus we are to seek these traits and therefore humility.

“In the Beatitudes Jesus is talking about the character traits of those already in the kingdom.”

In this relatively short book, just under 150 pages, he explains teach character trait and ties it to humility. With short chapters it can be read devotionally. It contains a study guide in the back for group study or personal reflection and application of the material.

What we find is not an exhaustive book, but certainly a helpful book. It is not very technical, assuming a knowledge of the original languages or lots of theological terminology. It is written for ordinary people to study. He often connects the ideas he is exploring with hymns that express those sentiments. It is rich in Scripture and hymnody.

Humility is poor in spirit. We recognize that we are spiritually destitute and unable to please God in ourselves. Our struggle with sin is far more profound than we realize, and realizing that is half the battle. Maturity means increasing in our awareness of this ongoing struggle. Our focus shifts from our actions to our attitudes and thoughts.

It is because we are still practicing sinners that we mourn. We mourn our spiritual poverty. We aren’t simply aware of our continuing sinfulness but broken hearted about our continuing rebellion.

Meekness points us to the humility of accepting the difficult circumstances in our lives as part of God’s wise, loving providence. Following Thomas Watson (for Bridges loved the Puritans as well as hymns) he applies meekness toward other people in terms of “bearing of injuries, the forgiving of injuries, and the returning of good for evil.” We will all be subject to the sins of others against us. Humility does not retaliate but bears, forgives (!) and bestows good. This is so contrary to our prideful flesh what strikes out, bears grudges and tries to destroy the offender. Our words are often weapons we use against them.

“Meekness is a defining grace, produced by the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian, which characterizes that person’s response towards God and man.”

We also have a hunger and thirst for righteousness, to be personally righteous. Such hunger and thirst is not so we don’t need Jesus but so we are like Jesus and bring Him glory. Prideful righteousness, religiosity, is an attempt at self-salvation. It is in this section in particular that Bridges distinguishes between positional and personal (what he calls experiential) righteousness. If I am a Christian I need not hunger and thirst for positional righteousness. I have it! But I do for personal righteousness.

Jesus then moved to mercy, and so did Bridges. He develops the idea of mercy as compassion in action. It is not simply empathy but moving to relieve misery as seen in Isaiah 58 among other places. Part of mercy is remembering the sins of others no more. This is not forgetting but choosing not to bring those sins up against them anymore. This happens only as we see the fact that God no longer remembers our many and grievous sins.

Another aspect of humility is purity of heart or whole-heartedness. He ties this into the fact that we are not our own but have been bought with a price. We are property of Jesus, as Bob Dylan sang long ago. Purity of heart recognizes this and seeks to see all of life through that lens.

Conflict is regularly addressed in Scripture. When I recently preached through Philippians I was shocked to discover how much this “epistle of joy” was marked by conflict. As someone going through a prolonged conflict, I found hope as well as conviction as I struggled to preach through such a “simple” letter. Humility seeks peace, and makes peace. Peacemaking is very difficult and goes against all our basic inclinations to seek peace on our terms. In other words, there complete surrender.

“To be a peacemaker, then, means we absorb the hurtful words or actions of others without becoming resentful, retaliating, or even cutting off a relationship with the person.”

Humility is revealed in how we respond to being persecuted for righteousness’ sake. While it is appropriate for American Christians to seek protection in our earthly citizenship (Paul, as Bridges notes, appealed to his Roman citizenship at times) we should recognize that our courts system will fail us eventually. We may lose our rights as the tide rises against Christianity. While experiencing hostility, we are not to be hostile but humble. Bridges reminds to entrust ourselves to our Creator, like Jesus, and continue to do good in keeping with 1 Peter 2.

He ends with humility and the gospel. He channels his inner Jack Miller and talks about preaching the gospel to himself and yourself every day. The gospel is not simply the door we walk through to begin life as a Christian but the path we walk as Christians. Humility only grows in gospel soil.

“It is the gospel that will keep us from becoming discourage and will instead motivate us to keep pursuing humility, even when we fail so often.”

This little book is gospel-drenched. That means it is encouraging, not discouraging. Our failures are opportunities to look to Jesus, not a call to despair or simply try harder. The humble and meek Jesus is ready to pardon and help us. Humility keeps coming to Jesus as our only hope. As we do this we find ourselves no better than others, in part because we are not focused on their sins so much. Our sins, and theirs, drive us to Jesus who deals with us as a wonderful, merciful Savior.

This is a book worth the time to read and think about.

 

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Considering The Walk

One of the things I don’t like about buying books on line is that you really can’t flip through it (Amazon is trying) and see if it is what you are looking for in the first place. The Walk by Stephen Smallman is one of the books I wish I’d been able to flip through. It was recommended in another book about discipleship. Since he’s in the same denomination in which I serve it, unlike the book I had read, would come from a more consistently covenantal perspective. This is not to say this is a bad book, because it isn’t. It just isn’t the book I had thought it would be. I was looking for a more theoretical book that had application. This is a book intended to actually be used to disciple new and renewed followers of Jesus. I guess I should have noticed that subtitle. But I do have a good resource to recommend to those, or use with those, who want or need to be discipled. One of the strengths is the progression that he uses from basics to discipleship thru the gospel on to mission. The goal is not information accumulation, but growth in grace, sanctification into greater obedience and maturity to disciple others and join Jesus in His mission (2 Cor. 5).

“If ‘going to heaven’ is the key objective of evangelism, perhaps that begins to tell us why discipleship is viewed as optional by so many ‘converts.'”

It is a 12 lesson course that could be used in SS, or throughout a year in a small group. He has a reading plan that goes with each lesson which he refers to often (largely Mark and Romans). He also has a reading plan in an appendix that can be used afterwards. We aren’t talking a verse to proof text. These are longer chunks that coincide with the material in the chapter. They build on one another to develop the context of the larger text. It gets people reading the Bible, since this is a large part of discipleship.

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Considering the Transforming Power of the Gospel

Jerry Bridges’ newest book, The Transforming Power of the Gospel, is what I now call a “blender book”.

I suppose some background is in order. My son recently had surgery and has been on a pureed food diet for 3 weeks. We take what the rest of us are having, usually, toss it in the Ninja (the Magic Bullet broke from overuse, so we moved on) and chop it up. Everything is combined into easy to eat mush, which is really important when you’ve had surgery on your palate.

This book takes the subject matter from Transforming Grace,The Practice of Godliness, The Gospel for Real Life, Growing Your Faith, The Discipline of Grace and more, and puts it in easy to eat chapters. It is not mush, there is a distinct progression to the book. He’s not merely repackaging the material either. He wrote a new book that blends all those together. There are people who would not own (and read) all of those books like I have. Or perhaps they are new to this thing (afterall, I’ve been reading his books since the late 80’s) and this provides a good summary to whet the appetite. Some will choose to read more deeply in some areas, and others will be quite content with what they find here.

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Considering the Monster in You

I’m nearly finished with reading The Letters of John Newton.  It is a great, humbling and encouraging read that is focused on the gospel.  The reason I bought the book was for a letter that ended up not being in the book.  It is a letter he wrote to a young pastor.  It is suitable for many of us.

Your understanding of the gospel is intellectually sound, but there is much legalism in your experience of Christ, and that perplexes you.  You are very capable of giving advice to others, but I wish you could apply more effectively what you preach.

Did he meet me?  Part of what is scary here is that we can intellectually “get it” but still have a heart bound by legalism.  We still try to relate to Christ with a legal spirit.  We seem quite capable, but don’t seem to live in light of what know intellectually.

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Considering Christlikeness

The second neglected aspect of discipleship John Stott addresses in The Radical Disciple is Christlikeness.  This, in my mind, is the very goal of discipleship.  So I guess that if there is actually neglected, we don’t even have discipleship.  That is a radical concept.

Stott lays out 3 texts that are foundational to this concept of Christlikeness.  The first is from Romans 8.

²⁸And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. ²⁹For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. (ESV)

Here the process of becoming conformed to the likeness of Christ (instead of the world) is largely passive on our part.  It is God who is working all things in our lives (including our sin) for this purpose.  His love resulted in election with this purpose of being conformed into the image of Jesus.  God’s goal, as C.S. Lewis put it, is perfection and He will not rest until He is done.  It will often be an arduous process for us.

Paul returns to the process in Romans 12.  Again, we are the objects of transformation.  This time it is not through our circumstances (God’s providential working in our lives), but the renewal of the mind.  This won’t happen unless we actually read the Scriptures, but God is at work when we do to transform us so we are no longer conformed to the likeness of the world.

From Romans we see, in part, that God is ultimately in control of the process not us.  One of the strengths of the Puritan’s theology was providence, and seeing sanctification as taking place (in part) through those providentially arranged circumstances.  Instead of avoiding hardship, they wanted to be shaped by it through the gospel.

Where Stott errs is in limiting this text (Romans 8) to the past.  Our election takes place in the past, but God is working now to conform us to the image of Jesus.  That is a small problem, not a big one.

The second is 2 Corinthians 3:18.

6But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. ¹⁷Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ¹⁸And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (ESV)

One again we are passive.  At conversion, God removes the veil that covers our faces when we read the Old Covenant.  Interesting, the problem is not the Old Covenant but the veil which is removed.  Now we are being transformed from glory to glory.  When?  When we we behold the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus (4:6).  Once again Scripture is central to our sanctification, for it is there that we behold Jesus (not in some mystical experience).  After all, Paul was talking about reading the Old Covenant to see the glory of God.  But we do see the present work of God to remake us in the image of Jesus.

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Considering Instruments Again

For Biblical Lay Ministry

One (all?) of the community groups here at Desert Springs is going through Paul Tripp’s Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change.  I guess that is one of the reasons I see this congregation as a great fit for me.  I’d have recommended this material, and they are already studying it.

It is a book I read during my transition period.  I posted some thoughts on it.  I decided to bring it home with me last night to review.  Yes, most of my books are now out of boxes.  When you go back to something you can often wonder why you liked it in the first place.  But this is one of those times you are reminded just how thoughtful and profound a book is.  Paul Tripp is one of those guys more Christians need to read.  That he has been a serious student of Scripture for a long time is evident as you read his books.  In the opening chapters I (re)discovered material suitable for my sermon Sunday and my upcoming series on Genesis.  You can read the first chapter here.

Here are some thoughts from the first few chapters, and the preface.

“For most of us, church is merely an event we attend or an organization we belong to.  We do not see it as a calling that shapes our entire lives.”

This is a great summary of what good pastors want to tell their people, often.  We are shaped by the ministry of the Word, both public and private or personal.  It is not enough to show up- but to engage with the Word by believing it and acting upon it.  One of the things I appreciate the most about this book is its call to do just that.  He has a very Word-centered view of ministry, for it is there that we meet with the Living Word- Jesus Himself.

“The King came not to make our agenda possible, but to draw us into something more amazing, glorious, and wonderful than we could ever imagine. “

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Considering Our Experience of Indwelling Sin

I’m slowly working my way through The Letters of John Newton.  There is some great material in his letters.  Today I read his first letter to Lady Wilberforce, William Wilberforce’s aunt.

He is addressing her experience of indwelling sin.  His counsel is counter-intuitive, but gospel-centered.

“I would not wish you to be less afflicted with a sense of indwelling sin.  It becomes us to be humbled into the dust; …”

He sees the role a sense of indwelling sin plays in our lives- to humble us.  Where we do not have much or any sense of indwelling sin, we quickly become self-righteous and filled with pride.  Rather than run from the sense of our sinfulness, Newton wants us to embrace it.  Let’s see why.

“Sin is the sickness of the soul, in itself mortal and incurable, as to any power in heaven or earth but that of the Lord Jesus only.  But He is the great, the infallible Physician.”

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Considering Love Walked Among Us

I finished reading Love Walked Among Us: Learning to Love Like Jesus by Paul Miller just before heading off to New York for a week.  Paul is the son of C. John (Jack) Miller, and has a ministry, See Jesus,  that offers 2 helpful small group programs.  The Person of Jesus is based on this book, and PrayerLife.  Both are interactive studies that come from a strong grace-orientation.  But, back to the book.

One of the things I found interesting was the variety of endorsements.  It does my heart good to see Tremper Longman, Steve Brown, Jerry Bridges, Dan Allender and Joni Eareckson Tada endorsing the book.  Max Lucado … not someone whose opinion really matters to me.  Brian McLaren … interesting choice.  Glad he endorsed it, it may mean he’s keeping his toe within the bounds of historic Christianity.

That last sentence is indicative of why a guy like me needs to read this book.  It reveals just how little I love like Jesus.  I can see why Brian McLaren would like most of the book- but he probably struggled with the last few chapters.  You’ll see why.

Paul’s 2 main premises is that Jesus alone shows us what true love looks like in action, and that we can only love well because we have been loved perfectly (including thru his penal substitutionary atonement- which is something McLaren has discounted publicly).  To bring us along, Paul uses numerous incidents from Jesus’ life to show us the richness of variety in his love, and the many barriers we have to showing love to others.  So this book is often convicting as our judgmentalism, self-righteousness, legalism and more are put on display as violating the 2 great commandments upon which all the Law and the Prophets hang.

But the emphasis is positive- love shows compassion, speaks the truth, depends on God and is energized by faith.  Miller weaves those biblical accounts from the life of Jesus with personal stories (he is not the hero of any of them), and some great quotes by various figures from history.  So you will find that it is an easy book to read, even if it hits you hard at times.

But it is not a self-help, try harder book.  The book ends with a section on how love moves from life to death.  It is about the centrality of Jesus’ sacrificial death, and how our lives are intended to follow that same track.  He is our model as well as our Substitute (see 1 Peter for plenty of that tension).  As a result, the book challenges those of us who err toward Phariseeism AND those who err toward a more “liberal” view of Jesus that maximizes his Incarnation while rejecting his finished work.  Miller does a great job of maintaining that tension of a suffering Savior whose love is rich and varied, perfectly suitable for the differing needs of its object.   So the book is biblical, accessible and applicable.  I heartily put my name up there with the other endorsees (even McLaren).  See, God’s using it in my life too.

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Considering Preaching the Gospel to Yourself

This morning we were talking about Psalm 16 in preparation for Sunday’s sermon.  One guy thought it reminded him of guys he knows grabbing themselves by the collar and preaching the gospel to themselves when facing temptation.  In Psalm 16, David is reminding himself of God and His benefits because he’s in danger of forgetting them in the midst of his troubles.  Psalm 16 becomes a great example of what it means to preach the gospel to yourself.

Preaching the gospel to the people

Ivan brought up the movie Luther.  Early on, Satan is accusing Martin and he is overcome with despair.  His Confessor Staupitz overhears this and enters his cell and preaches the gospel to him, summarized by “I am yours, save me!”.  Later, while at the Diet of Worms, Luther is again assailed.  This time he preaches it to himself- “I am yours, save me!”  He was internalizing the significance of the Christ’s saving work so he’s remember and believe it in the midst of spiritual attack.  If you haven’t seen this movie- what are you waiting for????

In the process of talking about preaching the gospel to yourself, I remembered a (short) interview with Jerry Bridges by C.J. Mahaney on the subject.  I think Jack Miller coined the phrase, but he is at least the first person I remember using it.  Maybe he got it from someone else.  But it is a helpful way to spend 20 minutes.

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Considering Books on Evangelism

Buy this book, you all.

I mentioned the Reformissionary’s Big 5 Books series before.  I thought I’d cover evangelism.  Steve McCoy limited it to evangelism- so I can’t put down any books on apologetics.  I’m in trouble.

• The Heart of Evangelism by Jerram Barrs.  This is probably the best book on evangelism you can buy.  I can’t recommend it highly enough.
• Powerful Evangelism for the Powerless by C. John Miller.  This is a great book as well, and not very long.  It is convicting and gospel-centered.  Jack was all about the gospel.  One of these days I’ll use this in a small group or SS class.
• A Faith Worth Sharing: a lifetime of conversations about Christ by C. John Miller.  Less theoretical, Jack used stories of sharing the gospel to instruct people like me about sharing the gospel.  Easy to read, and no less convicting & gospel-centered than his other book.
• Becoming a Contagious Christian by Bill Hybels and Mark MIttelberg.  We used this in SS for some evangelism training.  I thought it was good, and helpful for people.
• The Soul Winner: Advice on Effective Evangelism by Charles Spurgeon.  I’m not wild about the title- it sounds a tad gnostic, unintentionally.  But it is Spurgeon, so suck it up.

This doesn’t count, but it does have evangelism in the title: Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God by J.I. Packer.  He defends Calvinism from the various charges that it stifles evangelism.  What stifles evangelism in the sinful hearts of those called to evangelism.  Also not counting because the author is considered to be fuzzy on justification, but it is a book I found helpful is The Call of Grace: How the Covenant Illuminates Salvation and Evangelism by Norman Shepherd.  Reminds me that as a Presbyterian, making disciples started with my children’s baptism (Mt. 28).

Books on My To Read List:

• Evangelism in the Early Church by Michael Green.  I started it a few years ago and have not finished it.  Other things drew my attention.  Perhaps I ought to revisit it soon.  The new cover is way cooler than the one I’ve got.
• The Gospel and Personal Evagelism by Mark Dever.
• Evangelism: Doing Justice and Preaching Grace by Harvie Conn.  Looks like a more wholistic book from before missional was hip.
• Ancient-Future Evangelism: Making Your Church a Faith-forming Community by Robert Webber.  He borrows from the Celtic evangelistic approach as part of his emerging church ancient-future emphasis. 

If you have any recommendations- put them down.  I obviously don’t know everything, which extends to every worthwhile book.

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Considering the Conspiracy of Silence

I found this in How People Change this morning, and it seems all too true.

“I had an epiphany one Wednesday evening in the middle of our small group meeting.  People were sharing prayer requests, but it was the same old grocery list of situational, self-protective prayer requests masquerading as openness and self-disclosure.  I found myself thinking, Why did we all feel the need to clean up our prayer requests before giving them?  Why were we all so skilled at editing ourselves out of our prayer requests?  Why were we so good at sharing the difficult circumstances we faced, yet so afraid of talking about our struggles in the middle of them?  Did we really care more about what the people thought than we did about getting help?  Did we really think that God would be repulsed by our sins and weakness?  I wondered who we thought we were fooling.  It was as if we had all agreed upon an unspoken set of rules, a conspiracy of silence.”

David Powlison talks about our tendency to focus on our circumstance in prayer in his book Speaking the Truth in Love.  We neglect prayers for spiritual growth (which requires sharing where we are tempted and tried), and prayers for kingdom expansion (which requires that we participate and sacrifice). 

Here, Lane and Tripp, point to this conspiracy of silence as one of the reasons people do not change.  Change happens when we break the conspiracy of silence (or Code of Silence in a bad Chuck Norris movie, which are at best guilty pleasures).  They don’t go there, but I am reminded of Jack Miller’s comments on the idol of reputation.  The fact is that our reputation is an illusion for it is based on only some of the data about us.  The fact that we refuse to acknowledge ourselves as the “biggest sinner we know” means that we pretend trials don’t tempt us with great sin.  We focus on the evil “out there” and avoid the evil within our own hearts (James 1).  This is stuff that stifles the spiritual life of churches, not just individuals.  It is time to break the conspiracy of silence if it exists in your small group, family or church. 

Contrast our churches with this experience of Anthony Bradley‘s.

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Notes from Jack Miller on Brownlow North

Some  thoughts from a lengthy Letter from Jack Miller.

“It is clear to me that my zeal for making Christ known must be tempered by a humble willingness to recognize my limits as a weak person who constantly falls into the temptation of thinking that he can do the work of the Holy Spirit.”

“North was the great torchbearer of the revival, mainly because he set himself the goal to practice constant humility.  One way he did this was in his preaching.  He self-consciously labored to speak from a heart knowledge that he was chief of sinners.”

Before beginning his ministry, someone sent North a letter reminding him of all his sins.  He was converted.  Then he got the letter again before preaching a sermon.  He read the letter, then preached the sufficient grace of God in Christ to the people.  What Satan meant to destroy him, God used to glorify Himself.

“Perhaps you don’t drift the way I do, but I constantly forget the deep hole of depravity from which the Lord’s mighty love rescued me.  Drifting does not take any effort at all; just stop cultivating the knowledge of Christ, and the evil current of secularism does the rest.”

“One of the deepest compulsions of the flesh is to say to my Father, ‘Let me be in control.  Let my will be done now.  I’ll do your will later.'”

Brownlow North, an Anglican, did most of his preaching in Scottish and Irish Presbyterian Churches. 

“He was much loved by them in return.  However, when invited to the General Assembly to address it, he gave four rebukes.  Two of them were: 1. The Presbyterian Church is essentially a prayerless church, and 2. Its elders are nonentities as Christians and leaders, without real soul care.”

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Notes from Jack Miller- 3/12/07

Here are some quotes from Jack on prayer (mostly) from The Heart of a Servant Leader.

“He needs to break down our tendency to cry out in prayer, ‘Your will be done,’ and then to get up and still try to impose our will on circumstances.”

“Christ is the exclusive Head of the church and has His own methods for planning and developing congregations.  To ignore His methods is to put the leader’s work into a straitjacket and to generate frustrations and tension of the wrong sort in the leader’s inner life.”

“This was one big thing, a coming of Christ to His church, humbling us through corporate prayer so that He could express His personality through our oneness.  Such prayerful unity releases us from our crippling personal concerns and suspicious anxieties.”

“As we pray (together), correction from one another ceases to be a threat and becomes a way of release from the bondages of our small visions, self-centered motives, and lust for pre-eminence.”

“God-given prayer and praise have as their essence a waiting on God, a willingness to be wrought upon by the hammer  and the fire of the Almighty, until the chains of self-centered desires fall away from the personality, and the love of Christ becomes the deepest hunger of the inner life.”

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Notes to Leaders from Jack Miller- 2/27

“Think much of the Savior’s suffering for you on that dreadful cross, think much of your sin that provoked such suffering, and then enter by faith into the love that took away your sin and guilt, and then give your work your best.”

Vision: “What I would stress, then, is that a man of vision gets his vision only in and through prayer.  Only prayer with a goal of glorifying God at any cost can give God’s vision to a man or woman. … Hindrances there are.  One of these happens to be reservations in our hearts about the nature and character of His will for our lives.”

“One evidence of the Spirit’s presence in our lives is our seeing where we really are and admitting it to others.  One cannot make progress in life or ministry without being a forthright and forthcoming person. … Especially I am likely to discover I am not doing things for God’s glory and out of delight and fellowship with Him, but out of half-concealed self-interest and self-glorying.”

From The Heart of a Servant Leader: Letters from Jack Miller

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