On the topic of Christian humility, I think one of the easiest - if you can withstand blunt honesty - methods of developing it in yourself is to accept as completely true any claim of a moral or spiritual fault anyone else makes of you, regardless of whether or not you actually possess (or believe you possess) the claimed fault. The logic behind this is simple enough: if you do possess said fault, then the accusation is true and any attempt to claim otherwise by you is both lying and hypocrisy. If it is false, it makes no difference, as the only person in the interchange to claim it was false would be you, and judging your own sins is most certainly a task to which you were not entrusted.
The reason you haven't been given the responsibility of judging your sins should be obvious: you, of all people, have at once the smallest view and biggest bias in favour of yourself. This is plain even in the physical sense. You cannot see your own face. If you try, the most you will be able to see is your nose, and even then it will only be a blurry, out-of-focus image. In fact, the only way it’s even possible for you to see a decent picture of your whole face is with the aid of something outside yourself: a mirror. Even then, the image you see of yourself is not the same sight that others see; it’s reversed. How much more then, is our conception of our spiritual self blurry (and oftentimes the complete reverse) when compared to that which others see?
No, in fact, the judging of our own sins is thankfully (and conveniently!) the responsibility of the One who has the best view of us: Christ, who at once lives both inside and outside of us, who sees us from every imaginable angle, and for that matter, from every unimaginable one. He has made His judgment of our imperfections quite clear throughout the scriptures. When the question of whether or not we possess a given spiritual fault is put to Him, He gives us one of only two answers, both of which can birth only repentance or humility in us. Either His answer is “Yes,†or it is “Yes, were it not for Me.†But either way, the answer is “Yes.â€
What does everyone think?
On the topic of Christian humility, I think one of the easiest - if you can withstand blunt honesty - methods of developing it in yourself is to accept as completely true any claim of a moral or spiritual fault anyone else makes of you, regardless of whether or not you actually possess (or believe you possess) the claimed fault. The logic behind this is simple enough: if you do possess said fault, then the accusation is true and any attempt to claim otherwise by you is both lying and hypocrisy. If it is false, it makes no difference, as the only person in the interchange to claim it was false would be you, and judging your own sins is most certainly a task to which you were not entrusted.
The reason you haven't been given the responsibility of judging your sins should be obvious: you, of all people, have at once the smallest view and biggest bias in favour of yourself. This is plain even in the physical sense. You cannot see your own face. If you try, the most you will be able to see is your nose, and even then it will only be a blurry, out-of-focus image. In fact, the only way it’s even possible for you to see a decent picture of your whole face is with the aid of something outside yourself: a mirror. Even then, the image you see of yourself is not the same sight that others see; it’s reversed. How much more then, is our conception of our spiritual self blurry (and oftentimes the complete reverse) when compared to that which others see?
No, in fact, the judging of our own sins is thankfully (and conveniently!) the responsibility of the One who has the best view of us: Christ, who at once lives both inside and outside of us, who sees us from every imaginable angle, and for that matter, from every unimaginable one. He has made His judgment of our imperfections quite clear throughout the scriptures. When the question of whether or not we possess a given spiritual fault is put to Him, He gives us one of only two answers, both of which can birth only repentance or humility in us. Either His answer is “Yes,†or it is “Yes, were it not for Me.†But either way, the answer is “Yes.â€
What does everyone think?