Do you have a comfort zone? Do you spend most of your time there? How can you tell? There is a human tendency to seek out the familiar and reassuring. This is easy and comfortable, but it is not a place of challenge and growth. To move ahead you must depart from or at least challenge your preferred and familiar ways of being and thinking. Your certainties do not always serve you well, but letting go of them will be one of the most difficult things you can do. Ask me for the courage to revisit things you have held for a long time, and be willing to hold a ‘garage sale’ if necessary.

My word promises that if you humble yourself under my hand then I will exalt you in due time. Do you believe this? Are you putting it into practice? Do you see people humbling themselves trusting that I will recognize them? Or do you see people advancing themselves and presenting themselves in the most favorable light? John the Baptist said of himself that he must decrease that I might increase, and he lived simply and humbly as an outsider as an expression of this. But I said of John that among those born of women there was none greater. So it worked for him.

Do you consider it important to be a good Christian? What about a good person? Are these the same thing? Do you know anyone who passes for a good Christian that you do not think of as a good person? What about the other way around? Being diligent and devout in traditional church activities is highly rated in church, but those outside the church will evaluate you by different criteria. A good reputation among those who do not share your belief structure and creeds is therefore more valuable and enduring than a good reputation in church. Can you be a good person without being a Christian?

Do you love your enemies? You are called to do so. It is easy to love your friends, those who look and think like you, who hold the same beliefs and values. Too easy, in fact. Everyone does that. How often do the people you regularly associate with challenge your core beliefs? Do you avoid the people who differ with you in matters that you consider essential? Do they have to do something that is personally offensive to you for you to consider them your enemies, or is this enough?