If I were to give you a Life Hack that I try to live out it would be to live in the humility of remembrance.
Remember what the mission is, Matthew 28:18-20. Remember what the goal is, remember that pride never opens the gates of heaven. Remember to acknowledge the only One who deserves glory.
Remembrance. We were lost and dying. Jesus grafted us to a fruitful tree but remember that it isn’t us who look good but it is the root we are grafted into.
Have you ever seen people get a little recognition and suddenly they think they did it on their own? They got a raise and it’s due to their hard work? They get a car or a nice house, or likes on social media, or people who think they are knowledgeable in an area, and it is because of their ability?
They don’t understand the root they are grafted into. The Apostle Paul cautions us to remembrance and humility.
“Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry in order somehow to make my fellow Jews jealous, and thus save some of them. For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?
“If the dough offered as first fruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, although a wild olive shoot, were grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches.
“If you are, remember it is not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.”
“That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
“Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.
“For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.”
Romans 11:13-24 ESV
RC Sproul said, “How can I be arrogant when I’ve been a receipt of such grace?”
Remembrance is the antidote to not believing our own press, and the antidote to arrogance and pride. We must remember what Christ knew.
Christ knew he had to die for us and did so willingly. So, we must die to ourselves willingly. Remember that our gifts are from God and not from ourselves.
One week they are shouting how awesome Jesus is, the next week they are yelling crucify him. Why? Because he didn’t give them what they wanted. Neither crowd, those who praised nor those who murmured, deterred him from his purpose.
The press wasn’t his audience. The Father was.
