The Gift of the Knowledge of Our Unworthiness

 

 

Brethren, Do not be discouraged by what you discover when you look inside and see your many failures and unworthiness. This is hard to accept because we are taught that we are new creations in Christ, but all we can see are our filthy rags. However, the way up is the way down through the valley of the Shadow of death:

·       1 Peter 5:6–7 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

The way to life is the way to death, dying to ourselves and any expectation the we can rely on our own goodness rather than on the righteousness of Christ alone.

·       2 Corinthians 4:8–11 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

Consequently, Christ has taught us to regard ourselves as unworthy servants:

·       Luke 17:10 So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ ”

The Assyrians threw the worst king of Judah, Manasseh, into a dungeon where he humbled himself greatly before the Lord:

·       2 Chronicles 33:13–14, 16 He prayed to him, and God was moved by his entreaty and heard his plea and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD was God…And he took away the foreign gods and the idol from the house of the LORD, and all the altars that he had built on the mountain of the house of the LORD and in Jerusalem, and he threw them outside of the city. He also restored the altar of the LORD and offered on it sacrifices of peace offerings and of thanksgiving, and he commanded Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel.

We too need to be humbled to become the men and women God wants us to be. Jesus likened it to pruning:

·       John 15:1–2 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

King David had been pruned from an early age, the product of an illicit affair (Psalm 51:5).  Consequently, he was an outcast from his own family. God had directed the Prophet Samuel’s to go to the household of Jesus to anoint one of his sons to be the next king of Israel. However, the Lord rebuked Samuel who was about to anoint Jesse’s first son whose appearance greatly impressed him:

·       1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”

Nor was God pleased with any of Jesse’s sons. Perplexed, Samuel asked if he had another son. David hadn’t even been asked to attend. He had been assigned the lowest and most dangerous job as a shepherd who had to protect the sheep from Lions. Consequently, David had no other alternative but to trust in God. Nevertheless, our Lord had chosen this unlikely shepherd boy. Why? Years later, Paul explained:

·       Acts 13:22 “And when he had removed [King Saul], he raised up David to be their king, of whom he testified and said, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will.’”

David had learned that since God was for him, no lion would be able to prevail against him. Consequently, his trust was in God alone even as he faced the giant Goliath with only his sling.

I too had been everyone’s last choice. I had been so devastated by decades of depression and years of panic attacks I was sure that I could never be of use to Christ, and so too was everyone else. Yet for all of us, the pruning must continue (2 Corinthians 12:7-11).

 

 

 

Has God Surrendered His Power and Authority to Us?

 


 

Has God emptied Himself of His power and authority to give them to us, such that He can no longer answer our prayers? This is the position of many in the Word-of-Faith (WoF, or the “Prosperity Movement”) movement exalt man at the expense of God. Creflo Dollar taught that Jesus isn’t God but became God:
 
•    “Jesus didn’t come as God, He came as man, and He did not come perfect.” (Christian Research Journal (CRJ), B. Hunter)
 
•    “I’m gonna say to you right now that you are gods, little ‘g.’ You are gods because you came from God and you are gods.” (CRJ)
 
R.C. Sproul claimed:
 
•    “[Kenneth] Copeland writes, ‘Every man who has been born again is an incarnation and Christianity is a miracle. The believer is as much an incarnation as was Jesus of Nazareth.’” (Michael Horton, “The Agony of Deceit,” 44).
 
•    “You don’t have a god in you. You are one!” (92). “Jesus is no longer the only begotten Son of God.” (100)
 
Clearly, there is much that sets us apart from God. According to Jesus, the best of us are unworthy:
 
•    “So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” (Luke 17:10)
 
Paul claimed that we are nothing, apart from God:
 
•    For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. (Galatians 6:3)
 
A powerful Roman centurion admitted that he was not deserving of the Lord’s presence:
 
•    "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. (Matthew 8:8)
 
For his humble acceptance of the truth, Jesus had commended him. However, WoF preachers suggest that we shouldn’t regard ourselves as lowly. WoF TV evangelist, Copeland, offered an alleged prophecy from Jesus Christ Himself:
 
•    “Don’t be disturbed when people accuse you of thinking you are God…They criticized me [Jesus] for claiming that I was God. But I didn’t claim that I was God; I just claimed I walked with Him and that He was in me. Hallelujah, that’s what you’re doing.’” (101)
 
Do we presently have such great authority or must we await Jesus’ return? Elsewhere, Copeland claimed:
 
•    “He never made the assertion that He was the most High God. In fact, He told His disciples that the Father God was greater and mightier than He. Why didn’t Jesus openly proclaim Himself as God during His 33 years on earth? For one single reason. He hadn’t come to earth as God, He’d come as man.” (114)
 
However, Jesus had no problem in receiving the worship reserved for God alone:
 
•    And Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28)
 
Although Jesus never explicitly said “I am God,” He often equated Himself with God and always received worship, even from demons.
 
However, deceased WoF evangelist, Kenneth Hagin, had claimed that we are not different from Jesus:
 
•    The believer is as much an incarnation as was Jesus of Nazareth. (Horton,112)
 
•    Even many in the great body of Full Gospel people do not know that the new birth is a real incarnation, they do not know that they are as much sons and daughters of God as Jesus…So He was in the flesh a divine-human being. I was first human, and so were you, but I was born of God, and so I became a human-divine being.” (Horton; R.C. Sproul quoting K. Hagin)
 
However, Hagin’s assertions are contradicted by Scripture. Apart from Jesus, we are helpless to do anything of any spiritual value:
 
•    Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. (John 15:4-5)
 
In contrast, WoF offspring, Andrew Wommack, claims that we ourselves have healing power apart from God:
 
•    God has already placed His healing power within us, and it is now under our authority. It isn’t up to God to determine who receives healing; it’s up to us! (“Faith For Healing Is Based On Knowledge”)
 
•    The Lord never told us to pray for the sick in the sense that we ask Him to heal them. He told us to heal the sick,” and “Jesus told us to heal the sick, not pray for the sick. (http://www.awmi.net/extra/article/authority_releases)

•    [The ignorant] “When see that some sickness, disease, tragedy comes into their life, instead of taking their authority and rebuking the devil and commanding him to leave, instead they go to God … and they beg God, “Oh God please change this situation. Oh God please get the devil off my back.’ And it’s not within God’s power and authority. He gave us that power and authority.” (“The Believer’s Authority,” part 3)
 
According to Wommack, God has surrendered His authority to us. Consequently, God is now unable to help us. Therefore, instead of trusting in God, we should trust in our own powers and authority. However, this does not agree with the Scriptures”
 
•    He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. (Psalm 62:6–8)
 
•    Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!
 (Psalm 37:3–7)
 
The Gospel is about finding peace and joy through trusting in Him, not in ourselves:
 
•    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. (Philippians 4:6–7)
 
According to James, we lack such authority and, instead, are an insubstantial mist:

•    Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:13–16)

Consequently, We should thank God for any good, instead of taking credit for it ourselves:

•    But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10)

•    Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (James 1:17–18)

•    But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22–23)

We must not take credit for the gifts and workings of God. Nor must we degrade God in favor of ourselves, as the WoF does, whose fruit is inevitably disappointment, despite it popularity. Wherever this movement has gone, it has resulted in the loss of credibility and influence of the Church.

Understanding Unworthiness

 

 

How blessed to know how unworthy we are! A Roman commander of 100 solders asked Jesus to heal his beloved servant but added, “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. Just say the word, and he will be healed.”

·       Matthew 8:10 When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.”

In his unworthiness, he had gained great wisdom and faith. Jesus spoke the Word, and the servant was instantly healed:

A wealthy man’s second born son had demanded his inheritance and went to a foreign land and blew his wealth on prostitutes. A great famine came, and he had no money left for food. He got a job feeding pigs where he tried to compete with them for their food. Consequently, he was starving and decided to swallow his pride and return disgraced to his father, who had been had been awaiting his son’s return. When he saw his unworthy son coming, he ran to him, kissed, and embraced him:

·       Luke 15:21 And the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”

With this acknowledgement, the father threw him a great party. However, his oldest son was embittered. He had regarded himself as worthy of such a party but certainly not his unworthy brother. He refused to attend even after the father assured him that everything he had belonged to him.

Bitterness is the fate of those who regard themselves as worthy, while gratefulness is the inheritance of those who gladly accept their unworthiness. Therefore, it is not surprising that Jesus alerts us to our unworthiness before God:

·       Luke 17:10 “So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’”

Even the great Apostle Paul acknowledged this: Galatians 6:3 “For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”

Our blessedness resides in the fact that we understand this:

·       Matthew 5:3–5 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

 Paul had acknowledged that he needed to be continually humbled (2 Corinthians 12:7-10) to become the man that our Lord requires. I do too! I began to regard my church cynically. I was like the older brother who regarded his prodigal brother with contempt. I I required perfection in my church. However, by God’s grace, my contempt was killing me. It became so painful that I had to flee after the service, lest any see my uncleanness.

What is the answer? Always Christ! He loves us so much that He humbles us to exalt us. He prunes us so that we would bear more fruit:

·       John 15:1–2 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”

Am I Worthy of Love

This woman had been in great pain. To be alienated from yourself is also to be alienated from others:

•    “I really want to know who I am and have expressed many times to my therapist that I don’t feel human, but I’m not really understanding how to become a person. He hammers on how no matter who I am I am worthy of love. I am currently nothing/nobody so how can I be lovable? I really need some help with getting to know myself. Have any of you been offered any tools in therapy to help you understand who you are? In the last three years I’ve only learned who I am not.”

I can identify. Was I worthy of love, and what would make me worthy? Wouldn’t I have to hit the longest home run or become the school’s valedictorian?

I spend years thinking, “I just want to know who I am so that I can just be me and feel comfortable about me.” However, I was the last person I wanted to know. I didn’t like myself and was convinced that no one else did. Therefore, I tried to be like others, especially the popular ones. I studied their movements. Perhaps this might affect the way I felt about myself. However, I remained a loner.

Then I discovered that if I gave myself regular doses of positive affirmations I could better face the world. However, this contributed to further alienation. How could I possibly known myself and to accept myself if I am always lying to myself to boost my self-esteem.

My five highly recommended psychologists were unable to help. They just feed me with the same junk food I’d been consuming—positive affirmations. Despite this “rich” diet, I could no more engage and accept myself than I could fly like a bird.

I had to be assured that I was unconditionally and permanently loved, and that I had value. This would require me to abandon my unseen addiction to self-aggrandizing thinking which enabled me to get out of bed in the morning. Psychological counseling also robbed me of my dreams of achieving honor and glory. According to secular thinking, these entities were just the creation of my psychological needs.  Instead, life was just about finding happiness and meaning in a meaningless world.

I am now convinced that facing my addiction to narcissistic thinking was something that only Christ could do for me, but I had no idea of the painful and extended withdrawal I’d have to endure. My self-deceptions had to be incinerated. Consequently, I was stripped naked as my defenses were left in ashes. Panic filled the vacuum for the next several years.

In my vanity, I had previously survived by reassuring myself that I could make it through anything. I now knew otherwise. How could Christ love me if I barely could make it through to the next day! I was a failure, but He remained my only hope. If He wouldn’t rescue me, it was clear that I couldn’t.

However, He reassured me of His love through a series of miracles, which ceased more than 35 years ago. I can now say as the Prophet Habakkuk had written:

•    Habakkuk 3:17–19 Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.

I now know who I am, but it is not who I had wanted to be. Instead, I know that I am a beloved child of God, convinced that since I have Jesus, I have everything I need. I can now dispense of my mask and bask securely in the light of His truth.