3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
This verse challenges believers to think of themselves in two ways:
With level-headedness
According to the measure of faith God assigned us
Instead of thinking of ourselves with a sense of pride, we should assess ourselves with common sense.
but to think with sober judgment,
Christians are to exercise sound thinking about themselves. They are not to have an exaggerated opinion of themselves that is not accurate. Pride has an inflated view of oneself. However, a “renewed mind” is moderate in self-evaluation. Some people want to carry the image of being super-spiritual. They want to lord that image over others.
Christians are to be level headed when they evaluate who and what they are. We are not to think of ourselves as more or less than what God has made us. A person who underestimates his gift will devalue it and maybe not use it. An over-estimation of ourselves leads to pride. Proper appraisal of self is a spiritual imperative.
PRINCIPLE:
Sound judgment is fundamental to Christian living.
APPLICATION:
It is a besetting sin to think more highly of ourselves than we ought. Christians should think in terms of sound common sense. Objective self-assessment will help us measure ourselves against God’s Word and the place He has put us in the family of God.
Self-esteem is not a proper standard for self-assessment in God’s economy. It is the pseudo-psychology of this world system. God’s system requires us to deal with sin, not to justify it by feeling good about ourselves in the face of that sin. To justify ourselves through self-esteem overrides Scripture in favor of psychology. Many believers and churches today have bought into this idea.
The most popular major in many seminaries today is counseling. Many of those counseling programs are fundamentally psychological rather than biblical. As a result, individual believers today think that psychology will help them more than the Word of God. This is to accept a cosmos (satanic) system of belief over divine truth. A healthy self-perspective is a proper viewpoint. The believer who thinks God’s Word after Him will have a “sober” thought pattern.
A humble person orients to reality whereas an arrogant person divorces himself from who he truly is. A person with true humility develops a pattern or attitude of humility. A mature individual knows his weaknesses and his strengths. A humble person is balanced, someone who does not think lower about himself than he ought to think or higher about himself than he should.
Truly humble people admit their failures. They do not overrate what they are. They do not believe when people tell them that they are great. It is very easy in leadership to develop the illusion that we are greater than we are. The result of that puts the leader in a weak place. If we succumb to flattery, we put ourselves under the control of pride. Pride destroys many ministries. True love toward those who follow us must be based on humility.
Pride diminishes others and their accomplishments, and exaggerates the self and its undertakings. This is a selfish attitude that wants to be the center of importance. Self-importance is the core value of pride.
