Ephesians 4:2 – Be completely humble, and gentle, be
patient, bearing one another in love.
Arrogance is defined
by Webster’s dictionary as “an attitude of superiority
manifested in an overbearing
manner or in presumptuous
claims or assumptions”. Additionally, oxymoron is defined as a “combination
of contradictory
or incongruous words (as cruel kindness); broadly: something (as a concept) that is made up of contradictory or
incongruous elements”. Now let’s go a little further and define contradictory, which is stated as “a
proposition so related to another that if either of the two is true the other
is false and if either is false the other must be true”.
Can you imagine what an arrogant Christian
would look like? Me? You? Us? Hmmmmmm….There are so many components to
Christianity, but arrogance is not one of them! Let’s examine three of the works
that define a Christian: humility, gentleness and patience.
Humility is the ability to realize and
accept the fact that is not about you, never has been and never will be! To be
humble means to accept your place as a servant, a servant first to the Lord and
then to your brothers and sisters in Christ. We ARE not all that and a bag of
chips! But what we are is unassuming, mindful of others, always willing to lend
a helping hand and most certainly not having a high opinion of ourselves (Philippians
2:3). When we take that grand step of becoming a Christian, we put on a whole
new set of clothes-love (Colossians 3:12-15) and start thinking with a new mind-love
(1 Peter 3:8).
Gentleness involves being kind to one
another. As humans, we can be so mean
and evil at times; we can cut each other to the bone with our words and actions.
We simply forget, or just don’t care how painful it is to be mistreated, and
some of the things we do to one another would bring tears to even the resilient.
I can imagine that Jesus was faced with the evil that men do, but his kindness
was limitless and he exhorts us to learn from His ways (Matthew 11:29). The
Apostle Paul tells us that we must pursue gentleness (1 Timothy 6:11). We can
reach unbelievers through a spirit of meekness and gentleness (2 Timothy 2:25l
1 Peter 3:15), because they can see how we handle hatefulness and opposition. Gentleness is one of the fruits of the Spirit
(Colossians 3:12). An arrogant person cannot exhibit gentleness since they believe
it is all about them!
Patience is the ability to wait. It is
easy to lack patience with people and that includes our brothers and sisters in
Christ. And for many of us, what we want…we want! And when we want it…we want
it! We don’t want to wait on the Lord because our flesh is always eager and our
hearts are always selfish. We want people to conform to our way of doing things
instead of waiting on the Lord to do His thing in our lives (2 Peter 3:9)! God
tells us to ask for what we want and He will provide it (Matthew 7:7). However,
our problem is we lack patience. Even though God promises, He does not promise
to give it to us when we think the time is right!
You would not consider that a lack of patience has anything to do with
being arrogant, but just ponder about it for a minute. Arrogant people love themselves
more than others, when the Bible clearly tells us how essential it is to love
one another (1 Corinthians 13). Also, an arrogant person is impatient with
helping others, while the Bible tells us we should not be so (Galatians 6:9). And
again, an arrogant person is certainly not going to rejoice in anything that
makes them uncomfortable; but as Christians we are told to do just that (Romans
12:12).
What are you? Christian or arrogant? Because
you certainly can’t be both!
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