Young, cool, super anointed and blessed! This was me as of January 18th 2013. I thought I was God’s gift to Earth! You see by this point in my life I had only been a Christian for about 2 and half years and by this time I witnessed my parents and sister come to Jesus after continually prayer for them. I witnessed healings on many people including friends. I witnessed beautiful visions and signs that left me at awe before God. I went through serious trials and hard times but found victory through Christ. But sure enough what started as me being a broken man face down before Jesus claiming His glory only, quickly became an extremely prideful and arrogant man that took God’s blessing as achievements, and counted them as things I deserved and earned by my own righteousness.
Praise God because during this year of 2013 God called me to a discipleship school that I very very reluctantly went to.
And within the first month of being here God brought an incredible blessing through a godly leader who told me “Steve, you are so prideful and arrogant I don’t think the ministry can use you.”
My mouth dropped, and my heart broke. This was the beautiful blessing that sent me seeking in prayer, Bible reading, and fasting for days to what humility was and how I could attain it.
“For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” 1 Corinthians 4:7
I thank my God that not only does He hear someone like me through prayer, but He also answers with love. I cried out asking and pleading to God to make me a man that is mark with humility, and God spoke. He pointed out to me how prideful I was in the way that I spoke. Every single conversation I got into I had to make it about me, and what God was doing in my life. God rebuked me in this. He told me to stop thinking about myself, and only caring about me and my thoughts.
By His grace He gave me strength to start doing this. Shortly after He spoke again. He told me to continue to stop talking about myself, but also now not only to do that, but now put the focus on others. To care about others, to listen others, and to pray for them. This proved to be very hard for me, and often drove me crazy trying to keep my mouth shut. But God’s grace was sufficient. Every time I was about to talk about myself to build myself up He lovingly told me to be quiet and let others speak.
This was awesome! I actually saw God moving and working through me in this area. (It’s funny how I thought I had mastered humility at this point… nope!)
“Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 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 17:7-10
After a while God spoke again to me. He encouraged me, but then He told me there was more to go. He told me now how He wanted me to not only care for people with encouraging words and a listening ear, but He wanted me to be their servant. He told me to love them by being there for them and looking to help them out with needs they had. Once again God’s grace proved sufficient in this area. It was very difficult but this started to become part of my life.
Then God spoke again. He encouraged me, but He also told me that I was only serving people who I liked. That now He wanted me to serve people who are hard to serve, and the people who aggravated me. This proved to be the hardest step up this point.
During this time I lived in an apartment with 3 other guys, and I was cleaning coordinator which means that I assign everyone their cleaning jobs. And to be a servant I started off the week by cleaning the whole apartment by myself so that everyone’s job of cleaning the house would be a lot easier. But the end of the week came and the apartment was completely trashed. I was furious! I wanted to call out all of my roommates and chew them out! But I knew I would regret that so I was just going to storm out of the house to go and pray. But God didn’t let me… As soon as I was about to leave He told me not to go, but instead He wanted me to clean the whole apartment by myself again and not to tell my roommates anything about it. I was beyond raged at this point, but I listened!
And God was so faithful to bring situations into my life where He gave me the opportunity to serve when I really didn’t want to. His grace blew me away when I saw Him continually giving me the ability to serve in these ways.
“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.” Romans 13:1-2
The next step of humility that God began to bring me through was excruciatingly hard for me to accept. You see something happened during this year where a leader that was placed over me told me to do something that I believed to be straight LEGALISTIC! Right after the conversation with this leader was over I had to walk out of the ministry to go pray! I was full out yelling at God. I was yelling that “THIS MINISTRY IS STRAIGHT LEGALISTIC!” “SHOW ME WHERE IN THE BIBLE IT SAYS TO DO THAT!” Then I started yelling at God saying “WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO? WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?” Then it was as if God and The Holy Spirit tagged teamed to answer my question. I heard, “What have I called you to do?”, and before I could even think of an answer I heard a voice from with in me say “I’ve called you to submit.”
Which blew me up with anger because I didn’t want to bend my neck to what I heard. So I search through God’s word and found scripture after scripture talking about submission to authority and finally I broke down before God yelling out “FINE I SUBMIT! I submit”, and honestly in my heart I submitted to God and to the authority placed over me, and God overwhelmed me with peace in Him!
Then shortly after God brought the next step where God greatly challenged me to give up my wants, desires, and ambitions. That His will for me was greater than anything that I could do on my own. And there were many desires that I had in my life that sometimes even competed with God for the number one spot in my life namely marriage. I wanted a wife and daughter more than anything. But time and time again God showed me that marriage was becoming an idol to me. After about two months of fighting God in this area, God really brought me to lay this down and to give it to Him. So with much tears and pain I was humbled and gave it God. But it blew me away at how even something I never wanted and desired God gave me grace and strength to accept it.
Now the next step was honestly the most brutal and painful step of all. God was trying to work in me a life of walking in the light with my brothers in Christ but I refused. I thought if God is enough why do I need anyone else? But God began to show me the priority He puts on His second greatest commandment and how much He cares about the relationships we have with each other. So God pretty much said since I wasn’t willing to walk in the light with my brothers and ask for help when I needed it God was going to bring situations into my life to show me that I couldn’t walk this walk on my own.
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
Now there were many trials to bring me to the point of breaking, but there were two that stood out extremely far beyond the rest.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1:7
During my time here at this discipleship school. I found out one of my uncle’s who was my supporter was going to die that night. When I hung up the phone with my mom I was deeply sadden and then I heard a voice. It said “Why are you hear Steve?” For about two seconds I entertained the thought and then my eyes opened wide realizing where the voice was coming from. I instantly called the enemy out and rebuked him in Jesus name!
Then came the next night where I found out my uncle did end up dying and also that two more of my uncle’s who were also my supports were in the emergency room and were possibly about to die. Then I heard the voice again, but this time it didn’t disguise itself. It said “If you don’t leave this ministry I will keep killing your uncle’s and supporter’s!” This was extreme torture for me! Especially because I was just about to fall before my brothers in weakness and desperately ask for prayer, but just before I did that I heard another voice.
(Okay so I told you guys about step 1 how God was helping me to stop talking about myself and helping me not have to be the center of attention; well right when I was about to cry out for help I heard)
“Woah Steve, don’t tell your brothers what’s going on. No, you see if you do that everyone’s focus and attention will be on you, and that’s not being humble. You want to be humble right? Then stay quiet!” and I did.
My flesh began to freak out! My rage and furry was like never before, it was miserable! But eventually that night I was barely able to whisper to a roommate “please pray for me.” and he did and called a leader to come and pray for me too and I was able to open up a little bit about my need for prayer.
Then came one of the worst attacks in my life. I actually had everyone praying for suffering and trials for me because I saw the beauty that God works through them when we are faithful through them. So everyone did and I began fasting and praying for my discipleship classmates for about 5 days then the day I stopped is when the demon came. He came at first by dream, and he was tormenting me with the worst sin of my past. I was told that if anyone at the ministry found out about the sin they would kick me out of here because I was such a evil person. The dream was horrible! But when I woke he was not gone. In total he stayed with me for 5 days and he constantly kept feeding thoughts of lust, rage, pain, and many more disgusting things into my mind. I was brought to the end of myself! Which is exactly where God wanted me to be. I saw my desperate need for help from my brothers in Christ. So the next day I went before all my brothers and told them my worst sin so the enemy wouldn’t have a foothold and to walk in the light. And instead of condemnation I received prayer/anointing/ and encouragement! My mind was blown at the love that was shown to me, and God overwhelmed me with joy and peace beyond my understanding. The demon tried to stay another day, but I didn’t even hear what he was saying because the joy of Jesus was flowing through me and my eyes were cemented on Jesus!
“But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6
Now the last and finally step took so long for me to understand, but by far has been the most rewarding! God taught me that I must have humility to receive grace and that it’s only through God’s grace that i can overcome sin! It is a foreign concept to our culture that we can take what seems like such a weak position of falling to our knees, and crying out in prayer to God when we are tempted in sin and relying on NOTHING OF OUR SELF, BUT ONLY ON JESUS! Yes God gave us mercy to save us from Hell and gave us grace to become a citizen of Heaven, BUT GRACES GOES SOMUCH FURTHER THAN THAT! God gives us grace to overcome sin!!! I so often tried to overcome sin my own strength or my own cleverness. I came up with so many ways to not sin. But all of them eventually failed! The only way sin can be defeated is Jesus’ on the cross! So if I want victory over sin the only place I will find it is at the feet of Jesus! Because “God’s grace is sufficient for every demand of life! We are saved by grace (Eph. 2:8-10), and we serve by grace (1 Cor. 15:9-10). Grace enables us to endure suffering (2 Cor. 12:9). It is grace that strengthens us (2 Tim. 2:1) so that we can be victorious soldiers!”
My walk with Christ has drastically changed when I claimed grace for victory over sin! It is insane! There are things that I am no longer failing at! When temptation comes I no longer rely on any of my own defenses. My trust is only in Jesus and what He did. So I embrace humility because I can’t do this on my own and then I find victory over sin!
PRAISE THE LORD!!!
I know this was long but my heart is truly rejoicing in the Lord for bringing these steps humility. I know I am no where near perfect at any of these steps and I know there are probably a lot more steps, but I am blessed because each step draws me to look more like Jesus!
Recap
1.Humility through not focusing on myself.
2.Humility through putting the focus on others.
3.Humility through serving others.
4.Humility through serving the people who are hard to serve.
5.Humility through submitting to authority.
6.Humility through giving up my desires to God and trusting that He can run my life better than I can.
7.Humility through walking in the light.
8.Embracing humility and finding grace to overcome sin.
