Who Am I?
Why Am I Here?
The questions are not as important as where you look for the answers!
Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord.” Jer 17:5
I am persuaded that beginning with Adam and continuing to today, every human being has a built-in desire to discover their identity and their destiny. For the first twenty years of my young life, I remember being obsessed with wanting to know who am I? and why am I here? During that time, having little understanding of who God is, I found myself on a desperate quest for answers without ever considering the spiritual implications. I was looking for answers through the lens of pride and had no concept of the importance of humility.
Currently I am taking a group of young leaders through the powerful book by Andrew Murray, simply titled Humility. I have done this now about five or six times and find myself learning more with each reading. Murray in his opening preface says this: When I look back upon my own religious experience, or round about the church of Christ in the world, I stand amazed at the thought of how little humility is sought after as the distinguishing feature of the disciple of Jesus.
So even as I look back to my earliest days as a new believer, the lack of a true understanding of the power of pride to squelch humility was a problem. What is humility? Tyron Edwards probably said it best: Humility is not an abject, groveling, self-despising spirit…it is but a right estimate of ourselves as God sees us.
There it is—as God sees us. My friend your and my life can never be more glorious and satisfying as when we grasp a glimpse of who we are through His eyes. Sadly, the opposite is also true. When we allow our pride to push us to seeing who we are through the world around us it will usually lead to serious dysfunction at best. This explains what we are seeing in our world today.
Just take a look at the symptoms, porn, alcohol, drugs, sexual and gender confusion, suicide and a devaluation of human life are but a few. When we seek to understand who we are through the world around us instead of our Creator we will never become the man or woman God intended. I believe that humility is the number one attitude God is looking for in every one of His precious creatures if we are to obtain these answers.
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross. For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name… Philippians 2:5-9
Jacques Benigne Bossuet is quoted as saying, Man makes himself God through pride, God makes Himself man through humility. So there it is—Jesus is our model. But, you might say, how can any human being live up to that? In your fleshly, pride-filled state—you cannot. If we truly desire to understand our identity and destiny through the eyes of our Creator we must empty ourselves of everything that resists total surrender and assume a humble position before Him.
I have discovered that my ability to understand my proper position is directly related to my true understanding of His. Further, my true understanding of His can only be achieved by knowing Him intimately. And finally, knowing Him intimately cannot happen without a very serious commitment to spending TIME, reading the Word, praying and worshipping Him.
In Andrew Murray’s earlier quote, he shows his frustration in not seeing an important distinguishing feature as evidence in the life of the believer questioning whether they are a true disciple. I could not agree more and that is the reason why we are now unpacking what I call the Four Markers Of A Disciple.
The Four Markers Of A Disciple
- They have anIntimate relationship with God (they know Whose they are)
- They have discoveredWho they are, their Identity
- They know God’s plan for their life, theirDestiny
- They are living out their purpose and have becomeThe Man God Intended
I am persuaded that as pastors and leaders we have failed to recognize the importance of the first marker in positioning people to experience the rest. As I close, I want us to acknowledge two things. First, those questions are never going to go away—they will always be relevant. And second, it is not too late—we must move past our mistakes and begin to communicate, coach and guide people into experiencing a more intimate relationship with our Lord!
Self is the whole evil of fallen nature, self-denial is our capacity of being saved; humility is our Savior. –Andrew Murray
On a final note, I want to invite any of you who may be interested in joining me on a weekly OTI Zoom call to please email vince@otm.co. They take place every Wednesday at 6:00 PM Pacific Time.