Grove Chapel

21/03/2026

Love to see you there….

07/07/2025

This month's letter to Grove Chapel

Some thoughts on Hebrews 11:16 - 'But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.'

04/06/2025

My June letter to Grove Chapel.

I want to write this month about prayer.

Hold it there for a moment. Does that make you want to stop reading? No more than it makes me want to stop writing! Ask a pastor about his prayer life and the chances are that he will avert his eyes, lower his head, and own up to a sense of deep insufficiency and even failure.

If that is true – and it is certainly the case with me – the temptation may well be to give up and admit that I am a lost cause. And yes, you and I are all, by nature, lost causes. We agree with the apostle Paul, ‘Wretched man that I am!’, as we saw last Sunday morning.

But God specialises in lost causes! It was precisely because we were lost that the Son of Man came to seek and to save us (Luke 19:10). Knowing this, we follow Paul from devastation and desperation to deliverance: ‘Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!’ (Rom. 7:24-25)

Paul had a profound sense both of his own insufficiency and the all-surpassing sufficiency of God. He tells the Corinthians, ‘not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God’ (2 Cor. 3:5). This is as true of prayer as it is of anything else. Haven’t you found it? You try to get started in prayer and find a thousand-and-one distractions, discouragements and disincentives to pray. You start to mumble a few words, and then the devil comes along and tells you that you’re a pathetic hypocrite for even trying, and no amount of repentance will ever clear away the load of guilt that you have ratcheted up. Then you might recall heroes of prayer like John Wesley, George Müller and E. M. Bounds, who routinely spent several hours in prayer each day, and you feel more condemned than ever. Sound familiar?

It is to weak, weary, worn-out souls like you and me, bruised reeds and smouldering wicks, that the Lord Jesus speaks when he tells ‘a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.’ He describes a poor widow, a woman without means or resources, who persistently pleaded her cause with an unscrupulous judge. Eventually, fed up by her tireless requests, the judge gave her what she wanted. The point is that if this judge eventually consented, how much more will our righteous God and heavenly Father give us what we need! ‘Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily’ (Luke 18:1, 6-8).

God is on his people’s side when they pray. He is a Father who wants to give his children good gifts, and he wants us to ask for them. He is not stingy or reluctant. He is manoeuvring all the hosts of heaven to help us in prayer because he knows, and we need to know, that prayer is a great military offensive against the powers of darkness who resist us with all their might. That is why prayer is difficult. But prayer is possible, prayer is expected, prayer is commanded! Prayer is to spiritual life what breathing is to biological life. If we are Christians then we have been enlisted into the army of the King and we must fight, which means we must pray. Jacob wrestled, and so must we. The great passage on the armour of God in Ephesians 6 culminates in prayer: ‘praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints’ (Eph. 6:18).

E. M. Bounds, referred to above, tells us what we so need to hear:

Few Christians have anything but a vague idea of the power of prayer; fewer still have any experience of that power. The Church seems almost wholly unaware of the power God puts into her hand; this spiritual carte blanche on the infinite resources of God’s wisdom and power is rarely, if ever, used—never used to the full measure of honouring God.

Are you and I aware of that power, of these infinite resources at our disposal? Perhaps we need reminding of William Cowper’s words: Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees. And don’t forget John Newton, Cowper’s great friend and help: Jesus loves to answer prayer!

But for all this, you and I might need some practical help in prayer. I offer the following suggestions, fully aware that I have scarcely mastered the ABC of prayer myself. The list is not meant to be exhaustive, nor prescriptive.

1. Be intentional about the place and the time where you are going to pray. Make sure that time and place are set apart and that nothing and no one will interfere. As Jesus said, go into a room and shut the door (Matt. 6:6).
2. Early morning might be the best time. Or it might not be.
3. Hear God speaking to you before you start speaking to God. Read one of the Psalms. If you’re not sure which one, start with Psalm 1. Read it slowly, chewing over every line.
4. Start praying. Open your mouth and talk to God. Tell him that you need help in praying.
5. Use the Lord’s Prayer as a template. Pray the words of the Lord’s Prayer and, as you are able, expand on each line according to your own circumstances.
6. You may find the ACTS acronym useful. Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication (which means asking).
7. Be completely honest with God. He knows everything already, so tell it all to him. Get to the bottom of things with him.
8. Make sure to keep a place in your prayers for thanksgiving. It guards against a complaining, self-pitying spirit.
9. When words won’t come, just sighs and groans, don’t be discouraged. The Holy Spirit intercedes for us in this way (Rom. 8:26). But persist in praying.
10. Remember, both as you pray and after you have prayed, how powerful your prayers are because Jesus, your great high priest, is amplifying and perfecting your prayers in heaven. Expect great things from God, as William Carey encouraged us.

These all have to do with individual prayer, but pray with others as you have opportunity: believing relatives, friends or colleagues, church members. Form a prayer triplet or group with others; don’t wait to be asked to form such a group, initiate it yourself! And come to the church prayer meeting as often as you can.

May we see the Lord working in new and wonderful ways as we come to him in prayer.

Praise is due to you, O God, in Zion,
and to you shall vows be performed.
O you who hear prayer,
to you shall all flesh come.
When iniquities prevail against me,
you atone for our transgressions.
Blessed is the one you choose and bring near,
to dwell in your courts!
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
the holiness of your temple!
(Psa. 65:1-4)

04/02/2025

Paul Yeulett's monthly letter to Grove Chapel:

Psalm 23 has been much on my mind in recent weeks. It was the one psalm which I was familiar with as a child, like so many of my generation – and older – who sang the psalm to the familiar Crimond tune at school.

‘The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want.’ I’m sure I’m not the only person who misunderstood this opening line as a child. If the Lord was such a wonderful shepherd, why on earth were we singing about not ‘wanting’ him? It didn’t make any sense. It was not until very much later that I began to realise that ‘want’ is being used here in the old-fashioned sense of ‘lack’ or ‘need’.

My childish imagination also led me to suppose that David, when he wrote this psalm, resembled a pale-faced, rosy-cheeked schoolboy of about eleven, with short back and sides, who sang treble in a cathedral choir. When I heard the words ‘pastures green’, I saw in my mind’s eye the very gently undulating meadows outside Huntingdon, not far from Cambridge. Little did I appreciate that David was a mature, rugged, weather-beaten fugitive, someone who could ‘out-wild’ Bear Grylls any day, hardened by many years in the parched and barren wilderness, where ‘pastures green’ were very scarce.

But misunderstandings and blind spots can persist well into middle age, you know. When does someone become middle-aged, anyway? I must have sung Psalm 23 several hundreds of times during the course of my life, and it only has six verses. There couldn’t be anything fresh to discover in it, could there? Wrong!
I have recently been reading David Gibson’s commentary on this psalm, The Lord of Psalm 23: Jesus Our Shepherd, Companion, and Host, published by Crossway. You may have read many books on Psalm 23, but you really must read this one. The author pauses over every line and every word, unearthing depths of meaning and application which I had never noticed before. He demonstrates, most plainly, that David’s Shepherd is David’s Son and David’s Lord, our own Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd of John 10. Nowhere is he more pastorally insightful, and consequently more comforting to the troubled soul, than when he deals with verse 4:

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

I will quote what I believe are some of the most heartening words you will find in any commentary:

We will keep thinking about the valley of the shadow of death in the next chapter as we consider the greatest comfort that Psalm 23 offers us. But the point of this chapter is to go slowly enough through the psalm that we absorb the assurance and comfort of knowing it is not possible for the sheep to have an encounter with either death or its advance shadow that is outside God’s decree and his loving, fatherly care. My prayer for you as you read these lines is that you come to know the valley you are in to be God’s valley and your good shepherd to be the one who has led you there. At this very moment, you might feel more lost than ever, in deepest darkness like a shroud, but your Lord Jesus is not standing there beside you lost or scratching his head wondering what to do. It may not yet be part of your theological framework that all things, including each valley, come from God’s fatherly hand. But it needs to be. For if God is not in charge of the valley, how do you know he can get you through it?

The darkest valley – and you may be in the depths of such a valley right now – is, for you, God’s valley. You are meant to be in that valley right now. Not only has he marked it out for you, he is walking with you through it. The rod and the staff which guide and protect you through this valley are not impersonal tools which are operated remotely; they are in the strong and tender hands of the one who is guiding your steps as you continue to walk. Your journey through the Christian life necessarily passes through this valley, but the present darkness of the valley will, in God’s perfect time, begin to lift. Every step through this valley, walking with the Lord, brings you that much nearer to your true and eternal home; you are destined to dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

We don’t like the dark. We don’t enjoy being in such a valley as this. We are fearful, we are upset, we wish this episode in our lives could be over, and quickly. Why can’t we just fall asleep and wake up when the skies are brighter? But the Jesus of Gethsemane and Calvary is taking us along the path he has trodden, and although it may be a narrow and uneven path, it is the route to life, to glory, to eternal holiness and happiness. The Good Shepherd is with you right now, and we know this to be true, not because we feel it, but because he has promised, and he who promised is faithful.

05/10/2024

My monthly letter to Grove Chapel:

The hands of the clock tick forward, not backward. Time only moves in one direction. By the time you finish this sentence, you’ll already be about five seconds older than when you started it, not five seconds younger. This present life is a one-way ticket in the direction of old age.

‘The measure of a civilization is how it treats its weakest members’ is quote that has been attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, but it has been repeated, in one form or another, by many others. Human weakness, of course, takes many forms: illness, disability, poverty, homelessness, educational disadvantage, loneliness. We spend most of our lives trying to avoid falling into some kind of weakness; the very last thing we want is to be described as one of society’s ‘weakest members’.

The fact of the matter, however – as Professor John Wyatt memorably described when he spoke here at Grove Chapel several years ago – is that every one of us spends significant portions of our lives as our civilization’s ‘weakest members’. The newborn baby is only marginally less dependent on his or her mother than the unborn child, and a state of weakness and need continues for several years. But at the other end of life, for greater or lesser duration, a similar state of weakness exists. Professor Wyatt spoke movingly of how, in the nursing home, as he spooned the food into his elderly mother’s mouth, he remembered how she had done the same for him when he was a small child. This is entirely consistent with what Scripture says: Paul instructs the children and grandchildren of widows to ‘first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God’ (1 Tim. 5:4).

It is not often in these letters that I draw attention to current or upcoming parliamentary legislation, but I make an exception in this case. Last week it was announced that Kim Leadbeater, MP for Spen Valley in West Yorkshire, will introduce the Choice at the End of Life Bill to the House of Commons, with its First Reading on 16 October. This follows hard on the heels of a similar Bill being introduced to the House of Lords by Lord Falconer, and a public undertaking from the Prime Minister that the subject of assisted dying would receive ample parliamentary time.

Many affirming voices are being heard. Lord Falconer himself has said ‘I look forward to working with Kim and colleagues across both Houses to ensure that a safe, compassionate assisted dying law is passed.’ Sarah Wootton, Chief Executive of Dignity in Dying, described this Bill as ‘a historic opportunity to bring about real change for dying people’; she welcomes ‘backing a law to introduce greater choice about how we die alongside greater protections for all.’

The likelihood is that the Bill would allow two doctors to agree whether a terminally ill adult who is reckoned to have six months or fewer to live, and who is deemed to be of sound mental competency, to obtain medical help to end his or her own life. Assisted dying, sometimes referred to as assisted su***de, is therefore different to euthanasia in which, ordinarily, a medical professional administers a lethal injection. This Bill, then, appeals to individual human choice, to a dying patient’s self-determination about how they choose to end their lives.

But many other voices are being raised in opposition. The former Paralympian, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, is one of many who believe that this legislation would mark the beginning of a treacherously slippery slope, believing that ‘legislating for assisted su***de and/or euthanasia has a psychological and practical effect on the lives of disabled people’, and that ‘many disabled people fear that to show any signs of melancholy, struggle with their disability, or frustration with their suffering, would be to affirm a wish to die.’

From Canada, where not only assisted dying but euthanasia became legal in 2016 – the whole package is known as Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) – many sinister stories have emerged: of veterans being offered ‘assisted su***de kits’ when they requested stairlifts in their homes; of a man suffering from degenerative brain disorder who was frequently offered euthanasia and reminded how much his health care was costing; of a woman who suffers from ME and intends to call for a doctor to administer MAiD when her money runs out. The number of people in Canada who have died as a result of MAiD has multiplied tenfold, from 1,018 to 10,064, in the last eight years.

Back in the UK, the proposed Bill on assisted dying is a Private Members Bill; no party in the Commons will be ‘whipped’ into backing it. When similar legislation was debated in 2015, a four-hour debate witnessed a great deal of cross-party opposition, with the Bill being defeated at its Second Reading by 330 to 118 votes. But to what extent has the political and cultural landscape changed since then? I intend to adapt this letter (it won’t be quite this long!) and send it to my local MP, Miatta Fahnbulleh – you may choose to do likewise.

Is it really more ‘dignified’ to choose to die when we choose, where we choose, with whom we choose and how we choose? This question should not be answered flippantly. Which of us would prefer to endure long drawn-out months and years of chronic pain, degenerative brain function, mounting financial costs, and being a burden on many people’s time, energy and resources? Which of us would have the heart to object if an elderly, suffering relative requested the right to end their lives?

I can do no better than direct readers to an article by John Piper on the desiringGod website, entitled The Dignity of Those with Dementia. Piper says:

The honor [due to every human being] is not flowing from their unique moral condition but from their unique standing in the image of God, different from all other creatures. That applies to an 80-pound, arthritic, diapered, drooling, glazed-eyed human being that we love, lying in bed and praying for death in the nursing home, or in the jungle hut.

Piper’s father suffered from dementia at the end of his life. He discovered that ‘the encroachment of dementia in the lives of those we love is a gift to us. It tests our love as never before.’ He continues:

Such challenges of love are no accident. They are no accident. God didn’t dream that into my life for nothing. That was a painful gift to me and a test. We all will have them, so let us be full of grace as we give ourselves to care for those who have become too weak physically or mentally to care for themselves. God’s priorities for efficiency in this world are not ours.

Amen and Amen! God cares for the weak of this world, when others don’t; the care for the vulnerable has always been a great hallmark of Christian witness. And that includes, of course, the elderly among us all. The Psalmist prays

Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
forsake me not when my strength is spent.

And,

O God, from my youth you have taught me,
and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
So even to old age and grey hairs,
O God, do not forsake me,
until I proclaim your might to another generation,
your power to all those to come.

(Psalm 71:9, 17-18

06/09/2024

My September letter to Grove Chapel:

There is a serious shortage of pastors right now. This is a nationwide crisis, and to some extent a worldwide one. Seminaries are receiving fewer applicants than ever; some are having to close their doors permanently. Many pastors are leaving their posts, often through discouragement, weariness and burnout. The cry goes out from various branches of the church across the UK and beyond – ‘Lord, we need some pastors!’

I don’t propose to investigate the underlying causes for this shortage – not here, not now. The most effective action we can all take is to pray exactly as Jesus encouraged his disciples in Matthew 9:37-38: ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.’ This is a prayer we prayed here at Grove Chapel this week, and it is one we should be encouraged to go on praying. The Lord will not grow weary of persistent prayers like this – why else would he urge us to ‘pray earnestly’?

But this situation poses a question: are pastors really all that important? Perhaps the church can do without them!

We should start by asking exactly what a ‘pastor’ is. The word ‘pastor’ does not occur in the ESV, though it does in the NIV, in Ephesians 4:11. A pastor is a shepherd, ‘one who is responsible for the care and guidance of a Christian congregation’ (Louw & Nida Lexicon). This explains the background to Matthew 9:37-38; it says about the Lord Jesus in the previous verse that ‘when he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd’ (Matt. 9:36).

The vocabulary of the ‘shepherd’, of course, taps into the deepest and richest veins of biblical imagery. The LORD himself is the Shepherd of his people, the Shepherd of Israel (Psa. 23:1, 80:1). And Christ is the good shepherd (John 10:11, 14), the chief Shepherd (1 Pet. 5:4) and ‘the great shepherd of the sheep’ (Heb. 13:20). It is prophesied of Christ in Micah 5:4:

And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD,
in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God.
And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great
to the ends of the earth.

This Chief Shepherd, who is now seated in place of the highest authority, is the one who supplies shepherds to his church (Eph. 4:11). That is why we must appeal to Christ for the provision of shepherds. The Lord has always been the one who sends his chosen shepherds to his people, the primary Old Testament example being David, who was taken ‘from the pasture, from following the sheep’, to be the one who would ‘shepherd my people Israel’ (2 Sam. 7:7-8).

David was a qualified shepherd because God said of him, ‘I have found in David the son of Jesse a man after my heart, who will do all my will’ (Acts 13:22). The apostle Peter, in the same passage where he speaks about Christ as the ‘chief Shepherd’, urges his fellow elders to ‘shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock’ (1 Pet. 5:2-3). Quite simply, pastors are undershepherds whose life and ministry, whose whole disposition and nature, are to be consciously modelled on Christ himself.

But back to my earlier question. Does the church still need shepherds like this? After all, we’re living in a sophisticated technological age. Christians can now obtain all the help they need from a vast array of sources, mainly online. Sermons, blogs, podcasts, training courses, Bible studies, books, journals, discipleship programmes – we are abundantly furnished, and more! We might even say that ‘our cup runneth over’, that we have what the French call un embarras du choix.

Therein, to some extent, lies the problem. There is no doubt that these resources are a mighty blessing to many, and we should be profoundly grateful for them. They have made the writing of this letter very much easier than would have been the case if I did not have access to them! But it is a two-edged sword: we are so inundated with options that we might become just as ‘harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd’, as were the crowds in Jesus’ day. At the very least we need wise guidance to know which kinds of resources are beneficial, which ones to prioritise, which ones to trust and which ones to avoid.

But we must go much further than this; we need far more than resources, materials, teaching input. The incarnate Lord Jesus supplies flesh-and-blood shepherds to care for the needs of flesh-and-blood sheep. Jesus did not simply summon his disciples to two-hour lectures every day, nor did he hand them a series of textbooks to read and digest at home. He told them, in the Upper Room Discourse, ‘you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning’ (John 15:27). There is great pathos in Jesus’ rebuke to Philip: ‘Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip?’ (John 14:9) It is in this imitation of Immanuel, the Shepherd who is with his flock, that the apostle Paul, with equal pathos, writes to the Thessalonians, ‘we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us’ (1 Thess. 2:7,8).

Yes, there is a shortage of pastors, but we must not in any way weaken or water down the high calling of the pastor. He is to be, first and foremost, an imitator of Christ. Let’s hold to this high, demanding, but altogether beautiful and biblical description, and raise our voices to heaven, asking that the Lord might call a new generation of young men who love the Lord and will be devoted to his flock. It is a prayer that heaven will never disown.

08/07/2024

My July Letter to Grove Chapel

Outside the famous black door of 10, Downing Street last Friday, Sir Keir Starmer concluded his first public speech as Prime Minister by issuing a request to the nation: ‘with respect and humility, I invite you all to join this government of service in the mission of national renewal.’

These are noble and dignified words. We should very much hope and pray that our new government fulfils these high aspirations. It is all too easy to be cynical about our political leaders and their words, and I have been as guilty of this as anyone. Labour or Conservative, left, right or middle, it ought not to matter: Scripture itself tells us that ‘there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God’ (Rom. 13:1); and, as we saw two Sundays ago, the apostle Paul urges churches ‘that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way’ (1 Tim. 2:1-2). Now is as good a time as any for a ‘reset’ in our attitudes towards these God-ordained authorities in the civil realm.

Nevertheless, the words ‘humility’ and ‘service’ very much jumped out at me as our new Prime Minister spoke. They should focus our minds on the heart and essence of Christian discipleship. Taking the idea of ‘service’ first, let me repeat what I said several Sundays ago in a sermon from Ephesians 6:21-24 on Tychicus, the faithful servant charged by Paul with conveying his letter to Ephesus:

There is nothing more needed in God’s church today than faithful servants. Not gifted servants, not clever servants, not technically sophisticated servants – but faithful, honest, trustworthy, reliable, level-headed, responsible and committed servants.

I will add to this: nothing is more needed in the whole of life. Think of how many public organisations have the name ‘service’ in their title, whether we are talking about health, the civil service, the police, postage, transport, the armed forces and much more. What is needed, more than for any specific political party to be elected, is a rediscovery of the nobility and value of true service, devoted service, in the whole of life. All our work should be seen as service, service to God and to man.

But this type of service – I would argue, the only genuine kind of service that truly exists – is only possible where there is humility. And if the concept of service is misunderstood in contemporary society, much more so is the idea of humility. To be ‘humble’ is to be contemptible in the world’s eyes. A ‘humble abode’, a ‘humble offering’, ‘eating humble pie’: these descriptions speak of meagerness, poverty, of what is despised.

Four hundred years ago John Selden, a British jurist and scholar of vast learning, wrote that ‘humility is a virtue all preach, none practise, and yet everybody is content to hear. The master thinks it good doctrine for his servant, the laity for the clergy, and the clergy for the laity.’ Much more recently, an American country singer, Mac Davis, sang ‘Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble, but I’m doing the best that I can.’ Whichever way you look at it, humility is something that is not only unattainable for fallen human beings, but ultimately undesirable.

It is highly significant that in the Gospels, the Lord Jesus Christ taught a great deal on the subject of humility. Humility saturates the spirit of the Beatitudes with which the Sermon on the Mount begins (Matt. 5:2-12). Recently my attention has been drawn to the brief parable which Jesus told in Luke 14:7-11:

Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honour, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honour, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honoured in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Jesus had been invited to eat at the home of a ruling Pharisee. What would he have seen when he arrived? He would have seen the way people scrambled for the best seat, the place of visible honour, at the table. There would have been a very definite ‘pecking order’ as far as seating was concerned. It is likely to have been a U-shaped table with cushions; the further from the ‘U-bend’ people sat, the less exalted they seemed.

Selfish, proud and arrogant, we might think. But aren’t we all conscious of this spirit within ourselves? When we look inside, don’t we find our hearts riddled with selfishness, pride and arrogance? I know that humility is good, but I am proud; in fact I am infested with pride. I want to be noticed by people; I want people to give me more attention than they give to the next person. I want to be important and I want people to acknowledge my importance. I want to have the last word in every conversation; I want to be the one who makes the biggest and most lasting impression on proceedings. I resent it when people correct me and rebuke me, especially if I think they might have a point.

Why do I feel this way and why do I act this way? The answer is that I am a proud sinner by nature and therefore a proud sinner by practice. I was born with a corrupt and self-seeking nature, inherited from my first parents. I do not have to be taught how to be proud; it arises naturally out of my self-pleasing heart.

The only cure for this sickness is to know Jesus Christ himself. The One who had the most reason to be proud was the one who said ‘I am gentle and lowly in heart’ (Matt. 11:29), and as we read these words, we know that Jesus is the only person who ever lived who could speak in such a way without being charged with pride or hypocrisy. This is because his words, uniquely, perfectly match his actions: ‘For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich’ (2 Cor. 8:9). The only path of true humility, and consequently the only way to genuine service, is walked in living fellowship with the Son of God, who

though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:6-11).

Walk with Jesus, and you and I will become more like Jesus, and what could be better than that!