Friday, November 19, 2010

Humility by C.J. Mahaney

Well, the Mahaney family continues to blow me away. I plugged a book by Carolyn Mahaney recently, a must read, and I meant it - life-changing and definitely worth purchasing! The same can be said of Humility. Carolyn's husband, C.J., shares his wife's gift for writing passionately about topics that are Biblically and theologically substantial in content and practical in life application. Humility: True Greatness will knock you down flat, but you'll be thankful for the beating. Mahaney doesn't knock us down with harsh words and stern reprimands, but he gently and persuasively reminds us that we can only be truly humble when we recognize just how sinful we really are and how holy God really is. He encourages us to study and meditate on Christ's life and death, God's attributes, and to find evidence of God's grace in the lives of others. C.J. Mahaney clearly has years of training under his belt in the pursuit of humility and, by God's grace, much wisdom to share with us. So while this book was not written directly for parents, we all know that parenthood is a wonderful training ground for learning humility and this is a great manuel for battling sin in our calling as wives and mothers.

Here are some excerpts:

"At every stage of our Christian development and in every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride is the greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend" (p. 29).

"As sinfully and culturally defined, pursuing greatness looks like this: Individuals motivated by self-interest, self-indulgence, and a false sense of self-sufficiency pursue selfish ambition for the purpose of self-glorification. Contrast that with the pursuit of true greatness as biblically defined: Serving others for the glory of God. This is the genuine expression of humility; this is true greatness as the Savior defined it" (p. 44).

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