St. Peter Lutheran Church
2929 F.M 972 (at F.M. 1105)
Walburg, Texas 78626

Office: (512) 863-5600
Worship Services - each Sunday 10:15 a.m.
Holy Communion - 1st & 3rd Sundays

Contact
Webmaster

Last Updated:
Feb. 28, 2024

St. Peter Lutheran Church at Walburg, Texas
2024 - All Rights Reserved

Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ Texas District

Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God,

so that He may exalt you at the proper time,

having cast all your anxiety on Him,

because He cares about you.

- 1 Peter 5:6-7         -

There's something self-deceptive about power. When we try to grasp it, we find that it always remains just a little bit out of reach. A pure pursuit of power so often leads to self-deception; and honest self-appraisal often feels like selling ourselves short. We have convinced ourselves that the only way to get ahead and to get noticed is to carefully curate our "brand," as it were.

In recent years moralism has replaced Christianity as the dominant faith in America. It goes something like this: It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you look good doing it. Humility, the lodestar of Christian virtue, seems to get in the way of personal branding though. Even Christian leaders have become squeamish about discussing the virtue.

St. Peter challenges this prevailing thought. In his first letter, Peter states that the beginning of being truly human goes through humility, because humility shows us our place in the world. It states that no matter how good we think we are or how we've made something of ourselves; we still know there is some "chink in our armor." We try to cover it up and ignore it with bravado, and may even believe we've fooled people; but inside we are missing something.

God is not asking people to be humble in order to make Himself feel more important. He is asking us to be humble because trying to carry around the burden of perfectionism is impossibly heavy for us. Humanity doesn't have to pretend to be God or superheroes anymore.

In the 19th century they had a comical and ridiculous phrase that was bandied about: pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. In that day and age, it meant a delusional person who was lost in the clouds; clouds of self-delusion and ambition. However, as more and more Americans became white collar workers in the 20th century, self-help authors turned the phrase on its head. Today, we think only of the dizzying heights of self-expression and not the absurdity of defying the laws of nature on a whim.

Being humble doesn't mean that we give up or relent into lethargy. In fact, quite the opposite is required. It is far easier to change the outward works than to reform the inner self. In fact, it is impossible for any human being to accomplish this inner change; but when we allow Christ to work in our lives, we will find that He can do the impossible. He can "lift us up" to the very heavens when we lay aside our anxiety about manufacturing our brand of perfection. The deception of power ended at the cross, all we have to do is take a good, honest look at it.

In Christ,
Pastor Phil

Humility and the Cross