Tag Archives: Christianity

Encouraging ourselves in the Lord

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This was originally posted August 11, 2010. Something brought it back to mind today, so I thought I’d repost it. The Bible speaks much about community and our need to support, edify, and encourage each other, but it is vital we know how to encourage ourselves in the Lord.

“David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.” I Samuel 30:6b.

This is a sentence that has intrigued me often, and I have been mulling over it from time to time for several weeks. That might have something to do with the fact that we’ve moved away from our two oldest sons, and though we keep in touch, it is not the same as hearing what goes on in their everyday lives and helping them put life into perspective or quietly praying when the time isn’t right for motherly advice. I want them to continue developing this habit and skill of encouraging themselves in the Lord.

As Christians we are supposed to encourage each other, but sometimes there is no one at hand to talk to, or sometimes another person doesn’t really understand, or even if they do understand and do try to help, it’s ineffectual if we do not take their wisdom and encouragement in for ourselves.

The passage that this verse comes from is I Samuel 30. David had been anointed king earlier, but he was not the acting king yet: in fact, he was in hiding from King Saul, who wanted to kill him. While David and his men had been away from their camp, Amalekites had swept in, burned everything, and taken the women and children captive. David’s men spoke of stoning him out of their distress over their families. And at that point, “And David was greatly distressed; for the people spake of stoning him, because the soul of all the people was grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters: but David encouraged himself in the Lord his God.”

How did David encourage himself? Verse 7 says he asked the priest for the ephod and inquired of the Lord what to do.

We don’t have ephods these days — though sometimes that seems like it would be nice when we need a direct answer as to what to do next! But we have the whole word of God and the continually indwelling Holy Spirit if we’re Christians. One of the many reasons it is so important to read and hear the Word of God regularly is that, as we take it in, we get to know our God and His character better, and the Holy Spirit can then bring back to our minds the truths we’ve learned (John 14:26).

David wrote in Psalm 63 in an earlier situation (I Samuel 23:14, according to the reference notes in my Bible), “My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches. Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice” (verses 5-7). All through his life you find him inquiring of the Lord or going back to what he knew of God’s character and His word. Near the end of his life he passed this same encouragement on to his son, Solomon: in I Chronicles 28:9 he told him, “And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever,” and verse 20, “Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for the LORD God, even my God, will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the LORD.”

May we all encourage ourselves in the Lord throughout our lives.

See also When No One Understands.

By the way, I am not feeling misunderstood this morning. 🙂 These posts just came to mind so I thought they might be of help to someone else.

“Jehovah Findeth None”

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What Though th’ Accuser Roar

What though th’ accuser roar,
Of ills that I have done;
I know them well, and thousands more;
Jehovah findeth none.

Sin, Satan, Death, press near,
To harass and to appall;
Let but my risen Lord appear,
Backward they go and fall.

Before, behind, around,
They set their fierce array,
To fight and force me from my ground
Along Immanuel’s way.

I meet them face to face,
Through Jesus’ conquest blest;
March in the triumph of His grace,
Right onward to my rest.

There, in His book I bear
A more than conq’ror’s name,
A soldier, son, and fellow-heir,
Who fought and overcame.

His be the Victor’s name
Who fought our fight alone;
Triumphant saints no honor claim,
Their conquest was His own.

By weakness and defeat
He won the meed and crown
Trod all our foes beneath His feet,
By being trodden down.

He hell in hell laid low;
Made sin, he sin o’erthrew;
Bowed to the grave, destroyed it so,
And death, by dying, slew.

Bless, bless the Conq’ror slain!
Slain in His victory!
Who lived, who died, who lives again,
For thee, His Church, for Thee!

~ Samuel Whitelock Gandy

Book Review: The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert

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I don’t know when 148 pages of someone’s life story has impacted me more. There are sections where I have sticky tabs and markings on several pages in a row.

Unlikely ConvertThe Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor’s Journey Into Christian Faith is Rosaria Champagne Butterfield’s story of how she, as an atheist, leftist, feminist, lesbian professor specializing Critical Theory, or postmodernism, and whose specialty was Queer Theory, who hated Christians, encountered and embraced the truths of Christianity in what she calls a “train wreck” of a conversion.

After a few pages detailing how she came to her professorship and worldview, she describes a kind and inquiring letter from a pastor in response to an article she had written.

The Bible makes it clear that reason is not the front door of faith. It takes spiritual eyes to discern spiritual matters. But how do we develop spiritual eyes unless Christians engage the culture with those questions and paradigms of mindfulness out of which spiritual logic flows? That’s exactly what Ken’s letter did for me – invited me to think in ways I hadn’t before (pp. 8-9).

The letter had invited her to call him, and after a week, she did. He invited her to have dinner with him and his wife at their home, and she accepted. She was also at this time doing research for a book on the Religious Right and figured he could answer some of her questions. “Even though obviously these Christians and I were very different, they seemed to know that I wasn’t just a blank slate, that I had values and opinions too, and they talked with me in a way that didn’t make me feel erased” (p. 10). Thus began two years of regular meetings and studying Scripture before she ever set foot in a church, which Ken and his wife knew would probably be “too threatening, too weird, too much” (p. 11) for her. “Good teachers make it possible for people to change their positions without shame. Even as Ken prayed for my soul, he did it in a way that welcomed me into the church rather than made me a scapegoat of Christian fear or an example of what not to become,” (p. 14.)

Gradually she came to believe, but she knew it would cost her. “I clung to Matthew 16:24, remembering that every believer had to at some point in life take the step I was taking: giving up the right to myself, taking up his Cross (i.e., the historicity of the resurrection, not masochism endured to please others), and following Jesus.” “I learned that we must obey in faith before we feel better or different. At this time, though, obeying in faith, to me, felt like throwing myself off a cliff” (p. 22). “One doesn’t repent for a sin of identity in one session. Sins of identity have multiple dimensions, and throughout this journey, I have come to my pastor and his wife, friends in the Lord, and always the Lord himself with different facets of my sin” (p. 23).

She tells of a woman she knew and counseled who was in a Bible-believing church but was in a secret lesbian relationship. Her secret denied her the help and prayers of other believers and only resulted in shame and pretense. When Rosaria asked why she didn’t share her struggle with anyone in her church, she replied, “If people in my church really believed that gay people could be transformed by Christ, they wouldn’t talk about us or pray about us in the hateful way they do” (p. 25). Rosaria then asks readers, “Do your prayers rise no higher than your prejudice? I think that churches would be places of greater intimacy and growth in Christ if people stopped lying about what we need, what we fear, where we fail, and how we sin” (p. 25).

Rosaria was a tenured professor in subjects that would now radically change because of her conversion. When she let it be known that she was now a Christian, both she and her gay friends felt she had betrayed them and turned traitor. “I…was alert to the reality that God had ministry waiting for me. I prayed that I would be strong for the task at hand. Yes, I was still a laughing stock in the gay community. Yes, I was still a traitor and an example of what not to be. But so too was Paul the Apostle shamed among Pharisees, and I trusted that God would take my life and make a place for me” (p. 50).

The rest of the book tells how God did just that, both in her career and ministry to others, leading her to marry a pastor, to eventually adopt four biracial children, and to become a homeschooling mom.

Along the way, she shares an eye-opening perspective of what Christianity looks like to others. For instance, when she moved to a community where there were Bible verses on bumper stickers and placards, instead of it looking like people were sharing a bit of light, it looked to her like the community was for “insiders” only. Christians seemed like “bad thinkers” or even anti-intellectual to her before this journey, using Scripture to shut down conversations rather than to shed light. Unfortunately, that is too often true: instead of truly discussing what the Bible has to say and being “ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear” (I Peter 3:15b), some Christians take offense at being asked and use Scripture to bludgeon. One of my own family members has been turned off, not so much to all Christian truth, but to Christian community because of this experience.

One theme that comes out throughout the book is the willingness to engage people who are different from us in any way. Thank God the pastor and wife who first shared Christ with her looked past her butch haircut and gay and pro-choice bumper stickers to the need of her heart. But even after she became a Christian, she ran into this phenomenon in various churches. When her husband was the guest speaker at a church and she was getting out of the car holding one of her children while the other was asleep in the car seat, a man said to he, “So, is it chic for white women to adopt black kids these days?” After asking him if he was a Christian, she said, “So, did God save you because it was chic?” When her husband started pastoring a small church plant made up mostly of college students, families would come for a month or so and then leave because of a “lack of fellowship” with people just like themselves. I could step on a small soapbox here: I get so discouraged when people within the same church only want to fellowship with people just like themselves — same age bracket, some marital or parental status, same way of educating or disciplining children, etc., etc.

If I shared everything else I marked, I’d be nearly rewriting the book here, so I can’t do that. But here are just a few more things that grabbed me:

“Since all major U. S. universities had Christian roots, too many Christians thought that they could rest in Christian tradition, not Christian relevance” (p. 7).

“When we read in the book of Romans, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (8:28), we are not to be Pollyanna about this. Many of the ‘things’ we will face come with the razor edges of a fallen and broken world. You can’t play poker with God’s mercy – if you want the sweet mercy then you must also swallow the bitter mercy. And what is the difference between sweet and bitter? Only this: your critical perspective, your worldview. One of God’s greatest gifts is the ability to see and appreciate the world from points of view foreign to your own, points of view that exceed your personal experience”  (p. 125).

“Many people in our community protect themselves from inconvenience as though inconvenience is deadly. We have decided that we are not inconvenienced by inconvenience. The needs of children come up unexpectedly. We are sure that the Good Samaritan had other plans that fateful day. Our plans are not sacred” (p. 126).

When a teenage girl in foster care with mental illness heard a pastor speaking about God’s call, afterward she “approached Pastor Steve and said, ‘Steve, I hear voices all the time. How do I know the difference between hearing the voice of God and hearing the voices of my own sick mind?’ Pastor Steve said, ‘Dear one, we all have the check the voices of our own sick mind with the Bible. Daily. You are no different'” (p. 128).

One thought that came to mind while reading the book was, “Why don’t we see this happening more often?” If the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, and it is, then why don’t we see such transformative conversions more often, and why are those raised in Christian culture often so anemic? Sometimes I long with the Psalmist “To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary” (Psalm 63:2). Is it because we don’t share the gospel in a kind and loving way enough? Or is it because not many people are truly willing to examine the claims of the Bible and bring themselves under its authority? Maybe both. I’ve seen online encounters where non-Christians have as much of a “smackdown” way of encountering Christians as Christians do encountering them. I know I would have been scared to death to engage someone like Rosaria before she was saved: I’d have been afraid that I wouldn’t be able to answer her questions and she’d be able to run rings around me with her reasoning ability. But I have to remind myself that those whom God brought across her path with just the right thing to say at the right time were operating under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, not their own wisdom and insight. Sometimes we look for a formula: we see articles or pamphlets about “How to witness to atheists” or whomever else, and those can have some helpful points, but we can’t memorize a script and then present it to people. We need to share a Person and show His love to others and trust Him for the right words to say and pray for His working in hearts.

Rosaria writes now from a Reformed Presbyterian perspective, and since I am not from that perspective, I’d disagree with a few minor points here and there, but I am not going to nitpick about them. I do believe Christians can agree on the big issues and agree to disagree about smaller ones.

There is a condensed version of her testimony here, but I do encourage you to read the book as well. I believe it’s going to go down as one of my top ten of the year.

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

We Are Not Alone

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“Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”
Matthew 28:20b

When the Living Word comforted with the written Word

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One of the most intriguing passages of Scripture occurs in Luke 24:13-36. Just after the crucifixion and resurrection, two of Jesus’s disciples are walking to Emmaus, discussing all of these recent events. Jesus Himself draws near to them, but “their eyes were holden that they should not know Him,” and He asks what they are talking about that has made them so sad. They tell him of their dashed hopes that Jesus was “he which should have redeemed Israel” and the missing body in the tomb and the odd rumor that He was now alive.

Jesus responds, “‘O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?’ And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” Many of us would have loved for the rest of that conversation to have been recorded. but evidently the Holy Spirit didn’t deem it necessary. He continues instructing them until they arrive at their destination; they invite Him in for dinner, and as He blessed and broke the bread, “their eyes were opened, and they knew him.” And then one of them says a statement I love, “Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the scriptures?

We had a guest speaker at church last night, and he brought out something from this passage I had never considered before. I’ll have to paraphrase him, because I couldn’t write fast enough to get down everything exactly as he said it, but the gist of it is this:

“Why didn’t Jesus tell those two disciples, ‘It’s Me, boys! I’m alive!’ and comfort them with His physical presence? Why instead did he go through the Scriptures with them? Why did He use the written Word instead of the Living Word? Because He was about to leave them to ascend back into heaven soon and He wanted them to be confident of, trust in, and have comfort in His Word, to know they could count on it when He was no longer physically there.”

That is profound to me. When Jesus could have comforted with His physical presence (and He did reveal Himself to them just before He disappeared and then appeared again to them when they ran back to share with the disciples what had just happened), He used the written Word instead.

It would be an interesting study to see just how He used the Scripture throughout His lifetime and ministry: I’ll have to note that next time I read them. I know He used them to resist Satan’s temptations. He used them to teach about Himself. In John 6:63, He said. “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, referred back to what had to have been one of the most magnificent experiences of his life, being with Christ during His transfiguration, and said the written Word of God is a “more sure” word of prophecy than even that, “whereunto ye do well that ye take heed.”

So we, who are without His bodily presence for now, can rest in His Word and have complete confidence in it, be instructed in it, take comfort from it.

Can people misuse the Word? Sure. Satan does, all the time, as he did when he tempted Jesus, as he did in the garden of Eden. Whole false religions have been founded on a misuse of Scripture. The Pharisees, for all their knowledge of the Scripture, missed seeing Jesus in it. I don’t know how and why that happens. Jesus said in John 7:17, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” Maybe there was an unwillingness on their part, a predisposition against the truth, or something. They were often cited for their pride: maybe they didn’t want to admit they were wrong or give up the accolades that had been coming to them. We do have to be careful to come to the Scriptures asking Him to “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law” (Psalm 119:18) and not imprinting on it our preconceived notions.

But I think if we are earnestly seeking Him and willing to do what He says, and we’re comparing Scripture with Scripture rather than taking one verse out of context and going off on a tangent, we can rest in what we find there. We can’t “follow Jesus” apart from the Word: that is the avenue through which He speaks to us. Though we are without His bodily Presence until we go to be with Him or He comes back for us, He has left us with the God-breathed Scriptures and His blessed Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who testifies of Jesus, teaches us and reminds us of what He said.

When Love Came Down to Earth

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When love came down to earth
And made His home with men,
The hopeless found a hope,
The sinner found a friend.
Not to the powerful
But to the poor He came,
And humble, hungry hearts
Were satisfied again.

What joy, what peace has come to us!
What hope, what help, what love!

When every unclean thought,
And every sinful deed
Was scourged upon His back
And hammered through His feet.
The Innocent is cursed,
The guilty are released;
The punishment of God
On God has brought me peace.

Come lay your heavy load
Down at the Master’s feet;
Your shame will be removed,
Your joy will be complete.
Come crucify your pride,
And enter as a child;
For those who bow down low
He’ll lift up to His side.

What joy, what peace has come to us!
What hope, what help, what love!

~ Stuart Townend

Learning from the Savior’s learned obedience

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One of the verses in my Daily Light reading for this morning was Hebrews 5:8: “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.” The context for all the rest of the verses in today’s reading had to do with affliction, but that phrase about Jesus learning obedience arrested me, not for the first time. He had always obeyed the Father perfectly, but in Gethsemane  was the first time, as far as we know, that He prayed “not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). So perhaps learning obedience had to do with obeying the Father’s will despite His own will? (There is more helpful commentary on this verse at the bottom of this page.)

One way in which this encourages me is to observe how the sinless Son of God obeyed and endured. Here are a few thoughts:

1. Our will and His will. It’s not necessarily wrong to struggle with God’s will. For us, more often that not, it usually is a problem of faith or obedience. People throughout Scripture have been called to do things that at first they didn’t want to do: Moses, Ananias, others.There are many times when God’s call to someone included encouragement that He would be with them and help them: Joshua, Jeremiah, Paul to name a few. These days people say you’ll know something is God’s will when you “have a peace” about it, but sometimes God’s will causes fear, trepidation, reluctance. Jesus asked, “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me,” and then submitted His will to the Father’s: “nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.” We can follow His example when we shrink from something He has called us to do. He was sinless, but we can pray and seek His Word to deal with any sinful issues we might have in regard to submitting to Him.

2. Remember our purpose. In John 12: 27, Jesus said, “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.” The plan of redemption had been decided upon from the foundation of the world. I’m sure many of the people mentioned above had to go back to their calling and remind themselves of God’s purposes and promises when they were later in the thick of things.

3. Seek His glory. After saying, “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour, Jesus said, “Father, glorify thy name” (John 12:28). When we look at ourselves, our safety, our pain, our fears, our comfort, we shrink back: when we seek His glory we can find the purpose and strength we need.

4. Resist temptation with God’s Word. Satan tried to derail Jesus from His purpose, but Jesus resisted with God’s Word. We need to read and know His Word that we might do the same. Though He never sinned, we do fail, and thankfully God promises grace to forgive and help us. But he also wants us to be filled with His Word and grace and enabled to resist temptation thereby for His glory.

5. Remember the coming joy. “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrew 12:2). I wonder what all was encompassed in that joy: perhaps having finished His course, pleasing His Father, being reunited with His Father and back home in heaven where all is right and no sin or sorrow dwells, providing the way for us to go there, too. And that leads us to…

6. Look beyond the momentary to the eternal. “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18). “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:1-2).

Are there any other ways in which Jesus’ obedience encourages your own?

Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:15-16

Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus!

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Come, thou long expected Jesus, 
born to set thy people free; 
from our fears and sins release us, 
let us find our rest in thee.  
Israel's strength and consolation, 
hope of all the earth thou art; 
dear desire of every nation, 
joy of every longing heart.

Born thy people to deliver, 
born a child and yet a King, 
born to reign in us forever, 
now thy gracious kingdom bring. 
By thine own eternal spirit 
rule in all our hearts alone; 
by thine all sufficient merit, 
raise us to thy glorious throne.

~ Charles Wesley

I’m so glad He came!

Satisfied and thirsty

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“O God, I have tasted Thy goodness and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show my Thy glory, I pray Thee, that I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, ‘Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.’ Then give me the grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

-A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

Wanting our own way

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I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I had once done a study on what the Bible has to say about wanting our own way, looking up phrases like “own way,” “own thoughts,” “own heart” etc. I thought I’d share the results with you:

  • Judges 17:6b Every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
  • II Kings 17:33 They feared the LORD, and served their own gods.
  • Prov. 14:14a The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways
  • Prov. 21:2 Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth the hearts.
  • Isa. 53:6  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
  • Isa. 65:2   I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts;
  • Isaiah 66:3   Yea, they have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations.
  • Jeremiah 18:12   And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart.
  • Ezekiel 13:2   Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the LORD…
  • Ezekiel 16:15a   But thou didst trust in thine own beauty…
  • Mark 7:9   And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.
  • Romans 10:3   For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
  • Romans 16:18   For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly
  • Philippians 2:21   For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.
  • II Timothy 3:2b   For men shall be lovers of their own selves
  • Jude 1:16   These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.

Results:

  • Proverbs 25:28 He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.
  • Psalm 22:29 None can keep alive his own soul.
  • Psalm 81:12 So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels.
  • Proverbs 1:31 Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.
  • Ezekiel 11:21b I will recompense their way upon their own heads, saith the Lord GOD.
  • Ezekiel 36:31   Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.
  • Romans 1:24   Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

Remember:

  • I  Corinthians  6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
  • Psalm 44:3 For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them.
  • Proverbs 25:27b   For men to search their own glory is not glory.

Remedy:

  • I Samuel 15:17 And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel?
  • Proverbs  3:5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
  • Proverbs  3:7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.
  • Proverbs 12:15b The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.
  • Matthew 7:5a   Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye…
  • I Corinthians 10:33   Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.
  • I Corinthians 13:5   [Love] doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil….
  • II Corinthians 8:5   And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.
  • Philippians 3:9   And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.