Step 7 - Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings,
so that we may become more
useful to Him.
Psalms 41:4 – I said, "O LORD, have mercy on me; heal me, for I have sinned against You."
Pride is a killer. Pride says, “I can do it! I can fix my defects, and I am determined to remove these shortcomings from my life.” Although there are many bookstores that have entire sections devoted exclusively to self-help books, we know from Scripture that the concept of self-help is absurd.
Philippians 3:3 – For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—
John 15:5 – Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches.
If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from
Me you can do nothing.”
Humility is confidence properly placed. It believes, “Of myself, I am nothing. If anything good comes from me, it is Christ in me doing the work.” We are to look to the Lord for all of our strength, healing, forgiveness, and victory over our shortcomings.
James 4:10 – Humble
yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.
Psalms 18: 1-2 – I
love you, O LORD, my strength. 2 The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is
my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is
my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
Ephesians 6:10 – Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.
Jesus told
this parable to some who were confident in their own ability to live a
righteous life.
Luke 18:9-14 – To
some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody
else, Jesus told this parable: 10 "Two men went up
to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about
himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers,
adulterers--or even like this tax collector.
12 I
fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 13 "But the tax collector stood at a
distance. He would not even look up to
heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 "I tell you that this man, rather than
the other, went home justified before God.
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles
himself will be exalted."
God wants us to be humble and
contrite in spirit. We’ve looked at
humility on the first page of this study.
What does contrite mean? Contrite
means: remorseful, feeling pain and
sorrow for sins or offenses.
Isaiah 66:2 – Has not My hand made all these things, and so they came into being?" declares the LORD. "This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at My word.
So, in Step 7, we are humbly coming before God and asking Him for mercy. We are humbly asking Him to remove our shortcomings, because we know that we are completely powerless to remove them ourselves. We are humbly asking Him to heal us, because we are spiritually sick and need to be healed.
Psalms 30:2 – O LORD
my God, I called to You for help and You healed me.
Jeremiah 17:14 – Heal
me, O LORD, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for You are the
One I praise.
Do we really believe that God will remove our shortcomings? Well, the Bible says that Christ died on the cross so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness.
1 Peter 2:24 – He
himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and
live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were like sheep going astray, but
now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
In fact, this verse in 1 Peter says that we have already been healed. So what is happening when we aren’t experiencing victory over our sin? 2 Chronicles 7:14 is an if/then scripture. This means it will explain man’s part in God’s healing process.
2 Chronicles 7:14 – If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
Our part in
God’s healing process is to humble ourselves, pray, seek His face, and turn
from our wicked ways. Like the verse in
1 Peter said, --to return to the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls.
2 Timothy 2:19-21 –
Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription:
“The Lord knows those who are His,” and, “Everyone who confesses the name of
the Lord must turn away from wickedness.”
Steps 6 and 7 work together. We become willing to die to our sin. Like Christ was willing to die on the cross because it was the will of the Father, we become willing to allow our old self (our flesh) to be crucified because it is the will of the Father. Then, in Step 7, we can humbly ask God to crucify our flesh so that we may become more useful. If we haven’t become willing to turn from our sin and willing to let God crucify our flesh, then we will not experience victory and freedom from our sin and our sin-nature. Paul explains it further in another if/then type scripture.
Romans 6:5-7 – If we
have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be
united with Him in His resurrection. 6 For we know that our
old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away
with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7
because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Romans 6:11-14 – In
the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ
Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your
mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.
Have we become willing to die to our sin?
In Step 6, we looked at ten scriptural reasons why we should want our shortcomings removed. The second half of Step 7 reminds us to keep our motives pure. We want to experience Spiritual healing so that we will be instruments for noble purposes, useful to our Master, Christ’s ambassadors, and the light of the world so that people will praise our Father in Heaven. Let’s return to a few more of the Scriptures from Step 6:
2 Timothy 2:21 – If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.
Matthew 5:14-16 – “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”
How can God use us in this way if our lives are filled with character defects? How can we be useful to the Master for noble purposes, if the enemy is using our lives for his immoral purposes? How can we be Christ’s ambassadors, if we are ambassadors of ourselves –representatives of our sin-nature and chiefly concerned with our own selfish desires? How can God make His appeal through us, if we are always busy making our own appeals? How can we be the light of the world, when our lives are so darkened by sin? How can men see our good deeds, if our lives are polluted with shortcomings?
We are humbly asking God to remove our shortcomings, because we want to be useful servants of God and useful servants to others. God not only wants to work in us, He wants to work through us. He wants to speak through us, love through us, and touch the world through us, and we want to let Him!
Psalms 51:10-13 –
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me from your presence or take
your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy
of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will turn back to you.
May God
make us into humble, obedient, useful, and useable servants, and may our
attitude become the same as that of Christ Jesus.
Philippians 2:3-8 –
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider
others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should
look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of
Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not
consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made Himself nothing, taking the very
nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He
humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!
Are we now ready to let God remove from us all of our shortcomings? Can He now take them all --every one? Are we willing to die to our sin and live a new life? If we still cling to something we will not let go, we ask Him to help us be willing.
When we are ready, our prayer might
sound something like this:
God, I am now willing that You have all of me. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character that stands in the way of my usefulness to You and my fellow human beings. Crucify my flesh daily, so that I can be used for Your noble purposes. I pray that You will guide me so that I will do nothing from selfishness or empty pride, but with humility of mind I will regard others as more important that myself. Enable me through love to serve others.
I ask this in the name
of Christ Jesus, my Lord. Amen.
1 John 5:14-15 – This
is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according
to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that
He hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of Him.
Step 1 | Step 2 | Step 3 | Step 4 | Step 5 | Step 6
Step 7 | Step 8 | Step 9 | Step 10 | Step 11 | Step 12