Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought

It's funny if you think that almost every Christian in the world would agree that humility is important and that we are nothing without God yet virtually everything most of us do is not centred on God but us and involves self-improvement rather than simply learning to trust in God. I think the root of this problem is the carelessness with which we use words! For instance, is it right to say that as Christians we should "become better people"? On the one hand we could answer "of course", in that if we didn't our conversion would be suspect but at the same time the Bible teaches that the sinful nature and the flesh is utterly corrupt and that our aim is not to become better but to see our situation in the reality of sin that corrupts us and the salvation that comes from God so we cannot therefore actually become "better people". Of course in this example the problem is in the actual meaning of words which I didn't specify and which sadly in many cases are not qualified carefully. I have heard people use words like "racist", "bigot" and "sexist" in various Christian and non-Christians arenas with no real qualification of what the accuser means specifically and what does and doesn't actually constitute racism, sexism and being bigoted. Is it bigoted if I say that Arsenal are the best football team? Is it sexist to say that woman are generally more caring than men or to say that black people are more athletic? In church when somebody teaches something, how careful are they with their definitions?
All this introduction was because I was thinking about people who are spiritually proud. You have probably met them, they have an answer for everything and take counsel from no-one. They think that they are not only God's special friend for all spiritual matters but also that they alone are ordained to be the last judge. These people are a thorn in the side of many a ministry and have caused more than their fair share of pain, either by being overcautious and lethargic in the movement of the ministry or overly impulsive and single-minded leading ministry into danger. The folly of these people is warned about in Romans 12:3 which says that we should consider ourselves with "sober judgement". Stop and think for a second. Are you attending a charismatic church and think that "conformist" churches are backward and un-spiritual? Are you attending a conformist church and think that charismatic churches are airy-fairy or arrogant in their views about certain things? Both parties easily fall into pride and un-Godliness! God never told us that one group of Christians would be perfectly correct and every other group are totally incorrect! Why do we presume that we are basically 99% correct in our theology and everyone who disagrees is obviously wrong? Who are we to be the arbiter of all spiritual knowledge? Shame on us. Unless we learn again to be humble and accept our understanding as limited and changeable as other people's is also, we will never learn to move in the higher callings of God because we will fall before we fly!

Intro and symptoms

I used to have a blog where I spelt out my spiritual teachings and annoyances but decided to remove it for reasons I can't remember anymore. I have however recently been thinking certain major thoughts about being a Christian with all it entails and thought I needed somewhere to write it down so it is not forgotten.

My first post is about symptoms and causes. If someone catches a certain virus, their skin can break out into a rash. If they go to the doctor, the doctor does not diagnose a skin complaint and issue skin cream, they perform certain tests and diagnose the cause of the skin problems so that they might prescribe an injection or tablets to treat the virus causing the problem. It is appropriate that we diagnose and treat the causes of problems rather than their symptoms.

When we look at church, various underlying problems cause certain symptoms. The symptoms might be a lack of attendance of our members or people feeling bored and unmotivated by the contents of a service. Although these are symptoms of various things, we often try and treat them and ignore the cause. For instance we try and make the service more fun or 'appropriate' so that we boost our numbers or increase enjoyment. The problem of course with this approach is that instead of providing a long term reliable solution, we provide a temporary solution (if we are lucky) that becomes broken again because we did not seek the underlying reasons. Part of our problem I think is that many of the underlying causes of problems are spiritual, both related to the spiritual life of individuals but also related to the reality of the spiritual world, both of which we are mostly ignorant of. On the other hand, the symptoms are mostly physical or emotional and we think we understand these better so our solutions are often emotional or physical.

The only answer I can think of is for leaders of churches to literally be on their knees in prayer constantly to seek a better understanding of causes and their correct remedy.