Hallelujah.  The Lord’s good; amen?  I heard there’s a war going on in the Middle East; even so come quickly, Lord Jesus; amen?  Sounds to me that somewhere we need a man that will come on the scene and rise up and bring peace to that situation.  But before he can come, we’ve got to be taken out of the way.  Come quickly, Lord Jesus; amen?  You see, this is how quickly it can happen.  Are we watching?  I mean just one day we’re minding our own business and the next day there’s war in the Middle East.  Come quickly, Lord Jesus.  So, we’re called just to prepare ourselves.  The Scripture says that if, in fact, we truly are believing that day is upon us, if we believe in the imminent return of the Lord, then we’re going to be purifying ourselves even as He is pure; amen?  “Every man that has that hope in Him will purify himself, even as He is pure.”

So, that purifying process is something that needs to be in our lives, being sought for every day.  The subject we’ve been dealing with, I believe, is probably one of the greatest things that will bring that preparation about, as we understand what it means to be truly humble in the sight of the Lord.  So often, we direct humility toward man’s relationship with man.  But as we left off in the last part of our study, we were talking about the most important aspect of humility is humbling ourselves before God; amen?  An acknowledging of His sovereignty, of His lordship.  The need for each and every one of us to subordinate our will.  I’m talking about on a daily basis, for things that we seem to think are common events, that we have no right to be making without seeking first His will, His mind (Amen?) and making sure we’re walking it out according to His commandments. 

He that’s wise in his own eyes, we saw in Proverbs 26, verse 12, “there is more hope for a fool than of him.”  How self‑confident are you?  You know, there are some of us that are pretty full of ourselves.  We won’t mention any names.  If I did mention names I’d have to start with my own.  But there are a lot of us that are very confident in ourselves, in our decision‑making, in our long‑term goals that we’ve set and the plans that we have for our lives.  When, in fact, the Bible tells us to take no thought for tomorrow and to go and ask God if it’s His will that we go and do such and such; amen?  That’s the admonition of the Lord.  How confident we are to make all of these decisions and we’ve not even sought the Lord as to whether or not that would be His divine purpose for us at this moment, in these circumstances, so that everything we do we would be doing as unto the Lord and most importantly by the Lord.  “God working in us,” the Scripture says, “to will and to do His good pleasure.”

We’re told in Romans, Chapter 12, that we’re not to be wise in our own eyes, in our own conceptions, in our own opinions.  He’s calling us into a place of humility of heart so that we, above all things, I think, that today we begin to prioritize a teachability in our lives.  I hope from the study, here, that we would walk away with this one aspect, if nothing else.  Can I answer in the affirmative that I am making, I am purposing, to be more teachable than I’ve ever been in my life?