Is being humble vs. insecurity and feeling worthless

[childofGod31]

Is being humble before the Lord the same as being insecure in your own self and feeling a sense of worthlessness?

I think those are two different things which people often confuse and think of them as the same.

Sometimes we come before God and feel worthless, like we are a nobody. Like we are just a sorry sinner. But the question is: is that what God wants? Is that what He means when He says: “humble yourself before the Lord”?

I believe that the feeling of being unworthy is about being insecure, not about being humble. In fact, you cannot “do the act of humbling yourself” if you are so insecure.

Humbling yourself is making a step DOWN. But if you are insecure about yourself and feel worthless, how much down can you go? Therefore, it’s impossible to “be humble” if you are already on the very bottom…

In order for somebody to be humble, they FIRST have to feel that they are valuable.


So I think when people read the verse: humble yourself before the Lord”, they think that God wants them to feel insecure about themselves and not worthy of Him. Which is not true. Imagine a parent who keeps telling his child that he is worthless and good for nothing. We consider such a parent to be cruel and mean. Surely, we are not saying that God is such a parent.

A good parent wants a child to feel loved and cherished. And as a good parent, God wants to show us that we are very very valuable in His eyes. That we are very precious to Him. That He valued and loved us to the point of giving up something very precious to Him for our sake.

So once a person feels adored and valued and loved, THEN (and only then) a person will be able to exercise humility before God.

What is being humble before God? It is submitting your will to His voluntarily. God is love. He is all about love. So if you submit out of love, out of a desire to give yourself to Him, you are right on the money. He is very happy about that. This kind of submission is beautiful and like a fragrant aroma before Him.

On the other hand, if you submit to God only because you are afraid of Him, then it’s not quite the act that God is waiting for. After all, we are His Bride. And a Bride has to love the one she is marrying, not obey Him out of fear.

Because God is love, it is His nature TO GIVE. He wants to give love. But you can’t give love to somebody who can’t believe that you love them. In order to receive God’s love, you first must believe that He loves you. Then, based on your belief, you will FEEL loved. And this feeling will be proof that you have just received God’s love. Which is His will. Which is what He wants - to have you receive His love.



In order to love somebody, you have to be able to see them as GOOD and LOVING. Love responds to love. So God wants you to feel cherished and valuable in His eyes. The Bible says that Christ made us perfect. Then why do we keep seeing ourselves as sinners?

The Bible says that God does not remember our sins anymore. Then why do we feel compelled to keep bringing them up before God?

Do you think God expects you to be perfect? Surely not. Point out one perfect person. Nobody is. Everybody makes mistakes. And God knows that. Because He is wiser than us and knows psychology better than we do. As a child, we grow. As the one who grows, we will always make mistakes. There is no reason to beat up self for making mistakes. They are inevitable.

What’s needed is a love for God. That will balance everything out. That will keep you trying to do your best without any promises of punishment. Knowing that you are valuable in God’s eyes, will make you feel grateful to God and will enable you to love Him. God doesn’t see us as worthless sinners. People do. God sees us as His beloved children.

So why do we put down God’s beloved children all the time? Why do we call them worthless? The Bible says that we have to love OUR SELF just like others. If we keep not forgiving our self, and keep berating our self, and keep beating up our self and putting our self down, how can we expect to keep this commandment? That would mean that we would have to put down others (just like we do ourself).

It’s important to treat self with respect. Our SELF is God’s beloved child. It’s important to love self just as God loves you. If God says that you are valuable, why are you keep rejecting it? How can He love you if you can’t accept His love?

So forget this ridiculous idea: “we are worthless sinners” stuff. It probably came from Catholicism where the leaders wanted to control the masses. And what better way to do that than to make you feel like you are nothing and nobody?

God told to one person: “look at it this way: you are worthy enough for me to live in you”

Imagine that! God chose US to be His temple. And we know that God’s temple is holy and great. And that must mean that God thinks that we are holy and great in order to choose us as His temple.

 

[childofGod31]

continuation:

Remember, you are ROYALTY. You are of God’s court. You are God’s descendant. You are God’s Bride. And HE values you. He never puts you down.

Jesus told to somebody: people can’t come to me, NOT because I can’t forgive them, but because they can’t forgive themselves. (These people are not loving self as the commandment says. It’s imperative to forgive self. If you don’t, you can’t come to God.)

You have to realize that when God says: “humble yourself before the Lord” He means: give your will over to me because I know what’s best for you and I will then help you to avoid the pitfalls of life. It’s out of His love that God wants to control you. It has nothing to do with thirst for power as cult leaders imagine. It’s all about doing the best for you. If you submit to Him, you will listen to His advice, and like a good Shepherd He will lead you along the green pastures. If you keep listening to the thieves, you will always feel like you are in the desert, where nobody loves you or wants you.

The Good Shepherd actually lays down His life for His sheep. The Good Shepherd is NOT like the cult leaders who just want to control you for their own purposes. The Good Shepherd puts YOUR needs above His own. God is love! Love does not seek its own. That means that if God seeks control of you, it’s NOT for His own pleasure. It’s for YOU that He wants that. And why? Because He loves you so much. Paul said that the love of Christ is deeper than oceans. Do you believe that or don’t you?



There is a verse: our righteousness is like filthy rags. People confuse this with thinking that WE ARE filthy rags before God. We are not filthy rags, but some of our righteous deeds may be.

It’s simply an expression which tries to show that some people do good with the wrong intent, and therefore their deeds are not as perfect as they think. It's important to see the reality of your deeds. It's important to judge your deeds based on their real value rather than under estimating them or over estimating them. neither of these serves a good purpose. The best thing is to see them for what they really are. This is the only way to see how you grow as a person and to implement a change in yourself if one is needed.

Paul said: when the fire tries each person’s deeds, the fire will show what was made from gold and what from hay.

Jesus said to the luke warm church: you think you are rich, but you are poor and naked. In other words, some people are too blind to see that their deeds are not what they should be. And God wanted to warn people of the quality of their deeds before it’s too late, so that they wouldn’t have to be ashamed of them later. It’s out of God’s love that he is warning the people. He doesn’t want them to feel bad later about wasted opportunities.

It's your own conscience who will judge you. The people who have near death experiences come back and say that Jesus did not judge them, but they did themselves. Jesus only loved them.

So if you judge yourself here, you will have less reason to judge yourself there, when the opportunity was already missed to grow and to become better.

Judging our self is not the same as telling our self that we are worthless or beating our self up. Judging should be done in a loving manner, in reality, based on how much strength and resources one has for improving. Be a kind and a merciful judge to yourself. And you will do much better than simply berating yourself all the time. That really doesn't do any changes. Honest evaluation is the best. When people are doing poor in their classes in school, teachers usually don't call them worthless, but simply help them to work on their weaknesses.


Knowing that your deeds are not up to snuff is good in order for you to make a change for the better. But counting yourself as nothing or feeling worthless on account of this, will not help you to get better. Usually it just depresses people.

So we as people are very precious to God, in spite of our failures and mistakes. What kind of Love would abandon somebody if they failed somewhere? The marriage vows say: we will stick to each other through thick and thin, in sickness and in health. Our heavenly groom will be with us even in our spiritual sickness. The Bible says that Love never fails.

It’s imperative that we feel loved instead of worthless. God needs to pour his love on people and he can only do that when people can accept it. When a person feels unworthy, he can’t accept the love. So God’s wishes then cannot come true. So do yourself and God a favor: feel his love, feel your worth given to you by Him, feel your value to him as a dear son or a bride whom he loves dearly. It will be much better for God and for you this way.

And by all means, humble yourself before the Lord. Give your will over to Him. DESIRE to do what He wants. But at the same time, feel as special as you really are in His eyes.

Perfect love casts out fear. The more you love God, the less you are afraid of Him. It’s about trusting in His love. There is a verse: God delights in those who put their trust in His unfailing love. God has unfailing love. It can cover sins and mistakes. It can overlook failures. It can see past all the mistakes right into the intentions of your heart and your love that’s inside of your heart. Your love is what He treasures the most. Other things come and go. Other things should not be the focus. But your love He seeks. And you can give Him your love only when you truly believe that HE also loves you, and that you are precious to Him.

 

[T Man]

Amen, to all. But for me and this is of me, “humble yourself before the Lord”. The only thing we can humble ourselves in is own wisdom, our knowledge. Gods is far greater and we must bow down to this wisdom of His and reject ours. Basically put God first.

But i do love this writing, Amen.

Blessings
T

 

[Dionysiou]

It would be much easier to work towards this perfect love if i didn't have the fear of hell pushing me to stay on path. You have to be realistic, it's a very scary thought that God will be throwing people into hell but He wants you to love Him at the same time? Trying to develop this perfect love in such a situation is beyond me. Being humble out of fear is commonplace, just look at what Jesus says:

Luke 12:5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.

I think after you get to heaven (God-willing) then you can develop this perfect love. Even if we are "royalty" that still won't stop God from casting you aside if you don't do whatever your supposed too. Your a slave as much as you are royalty, dispensable. The sense of worthlessness is more a sense of hopelessness because no matter how you look at it, you don't have any options but to accept your fate and stay in line. Being humble as can be is a smart move in this situation, it can stop you from sinning. Same way fear does.

 

[childofGod31]

Does Paul ever mention hell?

He mentions the wrath of the last days "that is about to be poured out on all unrighteousness" (he said that they lived in the last days)

What does Paul say about sins? He says: punishment for sins is death. Did he say: "hell"? No.

Why do people assume that Paul meant hell in this verse? Because of the way people INTERPERT certain verses and link them together. It’s like an art. It’s like scrapbooking, but with verses. There is no verse in the Bible that says that people are going to hell for their sins. There is a verse that is talking about ‘eternal punishment”. There is a verse that is talking about “the lake of fire”. There is a verse that is talking about Gehenna. There are verses that talk about the “grave”. And if they are separate verses, there is no hell. But if somebody puts them together and says: they are all talking about the same thing, then the “hell” idea is born.

But why would the person say that they belong together and are talking about the same thing? Was he right or wrong in this conclusion? If he was right, then there is hell. If he was wrong, then there is no hell. Who is going to decide whether the person was right or wrong in his ASSUMPTION? Because it is an assumption.

We can make the Bible say what we want if we explain the verses from our perspective. It’s not that hard to do. It’s possible. And that is precisely the reason why many theologians are able to form different theories (which are contradictory to each other) but which are based on the same set of verses. It’s a matter of seeing the verses a certain way.

So let’s see. Are these verses talking about the same thing?

Let’s take the “hell” verses of Jesus’ time. The hell that Jesus mentioned was Gehenna, a place where they burned criminals. You see, Jesus was talking to Jews and Jews knew nothing of the eternal torture in hell. Their hell was basically a place of the dead where the good souls were temporarily until resurrection and the bad souls disappeared over time. They also believed that if you get burned (like in Gehenna) (in other words, won't get properly buried), then your soul is damned to disappear - TO NEVER be resurrected again. To NEVER be given a second chance again. It's ETERNAL punishment! So this is what they meant by "eternal". NOT that it continues while the person is feeling everything.

Jews did NOT believe in the same hell that Christians of our day seem to believe. Jesus did not talk about that kind of a hell. He talked about being burned in Gehenna for criminal acts (government was religious then, so people could be sentenced to Gehenna for committing sins against their beliefs...)

The old testament's hell is the same as Jews believe in. Although I think they called it "grave" sometimes.

So this "hell" has nothing to do with the lake of fire - aka: hell, aka: the eternal place of torture.

People believe that hell is eternal. And yet, Revelation says that hell is thrown into the lake of fire. Therefore, hell and the lake of fire are NOT the same thing. So why do people keep using the word “hell” while thinking of the lake of fire? They are two different things.

Revelation is a highly symbolic book. And what people have done is based their beliefs on somebody interpreting the symbolism. It’s very possible to be wrong when interpreting symbolism. So why do we assume that we got it right? Why do we see the lake of fire as literal place for tortured soul when the rest of the book is not literal? One cannot come to the correct conclusion if one interprets the same book literally in some places and symbolically in others.
So how can the symbolism be interpreted? So let me take a crack at interpreting. And why not? Everyone else does….

Revelation says that death will be thrown into the lake of fire. What could that mean? How about: the end of death! Didn't the Bible say that Jesus overcame the LAST ENEMY - DEATH. THIS is the enemy that is thrown into the lake of fire. This is where death ENDS!

Hell is also thrown into the lake of fire. Hell could be interpreted as “grave”. So how about that lake of fire is also the end of grave? Doesn’t it say that ALL places will give up their dead…

So the lake of fire is where God triumphs over death. How do you triumph over death? Well, Jesus did it by purifying us from evil by his blood, it says.

How do you triumph over evil? By paying evil for evil? No. But covering evil with good. So the lake of fire must be a “good” thing in order to overcome the enemy like death and grave.

Lake of fire is purification. And the word “torment” could have been interpreted as “touchstone” which is related to purifying gold. But of course interpreters couldn’t have known that, so they interpreted to the best of their intuition…

So once the worst sinners are purified, they are not subject to death anymore, and so the last enemy is completely conquered.

Since the Bible says that God wants to save all, and that He is so merciful and loving, doesn’t it fit better to see the lake of fire as God’s act of mercy instead of act of vengeance? We read stuff through some preconceived ideas. We might read “fury” or “anger” into the verses that don’t really have that in them. The words “thrown into the lake of fire” might sound ominous and scary. Or they might sound compassionate. Whoever translated “forever and ever” probably didn’t see it the compassionate way either. He might have said: “purified for a period of time” instead of translating “Tormented forever and ever”


And besides, the angels are loving beings are they not? They are in heaven with a loving God. And how do you think it will make them feel to observe the torment of the people? It says they were tormented in the presence of the angels. Do you think angels are sadistic? Or were they all standing with tears in their eyes, observing what God was doing to the people….. How did the God feel? Doesn’t it say that He loved the world SOOOO MUCH….. Could he stand to watch it?

Doesn’t it make more sense to see things from the compassionate side than through a cruel one?

My point is this: people interpret things and then believe it. But interpretation is not always correct and needs to be double checked, especially if the idea is a bad one….

 

[Dionysiou]

Does Paul ever mention hell?

He mentions the wrath of the last days "that is about to be poured out on all unrighteousness" (he said that they lived in the last days)

What does Paul say about sins? He says: punishment for sins is death. Did he say: "hell"? No.

Why do people assume that Paul meant hell in this verse? Because of the way people INTERPERT certain verses and link them together. It’s like an art. It’s like scrapbooking, but with verses. There is no verse in the Bible that says that people are going to hell for their sins. There is a verse that is talking about ‘eternal punishment”. There is a verse that is talking about “the lake of fire”. There is a verse that is talking about Gehenna. There are verses that talk about the “grave”. And if they are separate verses, there is no hell. But if somebody puts them together and says: they are all talking about the same thing, then the “hell” idea is born.

But why would the person say that they belong together and are talking about the same thing? Was he right or wrong in this conclusion? If he was right, then there is hell. If he was wrong, then there is no hell. Who is going to decide whether the person was right or wrong in his ASSUMPTION? Because it is an assumption.

We can make the Bible say what we want if we explain the verses from our perspective. It’s not that hard to do. It’s possible. And that is precisely the reason why many theologians are able to form different theories (which are contradictory to each other) but which are based on the same set of verses. It’s a matter of seeing the verses a certain way.

So let’s see. Are these verses talking about the same thing?

Let’s take the “hell” verses of Jesus’ time. The hell that Jesus mentioned was Gehenna, a place where they burned criminals. You see, Jesus was talking to Jews and Jews knew nothing of the eternal torture in hell. Their hell was basically a place of the dead where the good souls were temporarily until resurrection and the bad souls disappeared over time. They also believed that if you get burned (like in Gehenna) (in other words, won't get properly buried), then your soul is damned to disappear - TO NEVER be resurrected again. To NEVER be given a second chance again. It's ETERNAL punishment! So this is what they meant by "eternal". NOT that it continues while the person is feeling everything.

Jews did NOT believe in the same hell that Christians of our day seem to believe. Jesus did not talk about that kind of a hell. He talked about being burned in Gehenna for criminal acts (government was religious then, so people could be sentenced to Gehenna for committing sins against their beliefs...)

The old testament's hell is the same as Jews believe in. Although I think they called it "grave" sometimes.

So this "hell" has nothing to do with the lake of fire - aka: hell, aka: the eternal place of torture.

People believe that hell is eternal. And yet, Revelation says that hell is thrown into the lake of fire. Therefore, hell and the lake of fire are NOT the same thing. So why do people keep using the word “hell” while thinking of the lake of fire? They are two different things.

Revelation is a highly symbolic book. And what people have done is based their beliefs on somebody interpreting the symbolism. It’s very possible to be wrong when interpreting symbolism. So why do we assume that we got it right? Why do we see the lake of fire as literal place for tortured soul when the rest of the book is not literal? One cannot come to the correct conclusion if one interprets the same book literally in some places and symbolically in others.
So how can the symbolism be interpreted? So let me take a crack at interpreting. And why not? Everyone else does….

Revelation says that death will be thrown into the lake of fire. What could that mean? How about: the end of death! Didn't the Bible say that Jesus overcame the LAST ENEMY - DEATH. THIS is the enemy that is thrown into the lake of fire. This is where death ENDS!

Hell is also thrown into the lake of fire. Hell could be interpreted as “grave”. So how about that lake of fire is also the end of grave? Doesn’t it say that ALL places will give up their dead…

So the lake of fire is where God triumphs over death. How do you triumph over death? Well, Jesus did it by purifying us from evil by his blood, it says.

How do you triumph over evil? By paying evil for evil? No. But covering evil with good. So the lake of fire must be a “good” thing in order to overcome the enemy like death and grave.

Lake of fire is purification. And the word “torment” could have been interpreted as “touchstone” which is related to purifying gold. But of course interpreters couldn’t have known that, so they interpreted to the best of their intuition…

So once the worst sinners are purified, they are not subject to death anymore, and so the last enemy is completely conquered.

Since the Bible says that God wants to save all, and that He is so merciful and loving, doesn’t it fit better to see the lake of fire as God’s act of mercy instead of act of vengeance? We read stuff through some preconceived ideas. We might read “fury” or “anger” into the verses that don’t really have that in them. The words “thrown into the lake of fire” might sound ominous and scary. Or they might sound compassionate. Whoever translated “forever and ever” probably didn’t see it the compassionate way either. He might have said: “purified for a period of time” instead of translating “Tormented forever and ever”


And besides, the angels are loving beings are they not? They are in heaven with a loving God. And how do you think it will make them feel to observe the torment of the people? It says they were tormented in the presence of the angels. Do you think angels are sadistic? Or were they all standing with tears in their eyes, observing what God was doing to the people….. How did the God feel? Doesn’t it say that He loved the world SOOOO MUCH….. Could he stand to watch it?

Doesn’t it make more sense to see things from the compassionate side than through a cruel one?

My point is this: people interpret things and then believe it. But interpretation is not always correct and needs to be double checked, especially if the idea is a bad one….

I hear you and if i saw it like that, things would be different. I suppose i've always been told that there is a hell where people suffer and the idea is so horrific that it's stuck with me. It does make more sense to see God on the compassionate side, i prefer your view by a mile. I think ill pray for God to reveal to me what is really going on. thanks bud.

 

[wayfaring man]

One can recognizably comprehend that greatness lies within, and yet be/remain humble by realizing and acknowledging that that greatness is not our own, and is also potentially, equally available to anyone + everyone else !