Romans 12:3 (NIV)
For by
the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more
highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in
accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.
It seems that most
people either think too highly of themselves, as Paul is addressing in this
verse, or, perhaps more commonly, think too little of themselves. People have a huge capacity to delude themselves. To think too highly of yourself reflects
excessive pride and shows itself in arrogance.
To think too lowly of yourself reflects your listening to Satan’s lies
about your self-worth and shows itself a variety of negative emotions and
actions. The most negative result of a
low self-evaluation is the limit that you impose on yourself to be and to do
what God created you to be and to do.
In the verse
preceding this one, Paul wrote about a Christian having a renewed mind that is
not influenced by worldly standards and values.
Such standards and values typically cause a person to be self-centered,
selfish, and filled with lust and pride. In this verse Paul writes first that
he was given the gift of grace that, in fact, all believers in Christ are
given. Grace is “God’s Redemption (or
Riches) At Christ’s Expense”. Grace is
the desire and power to do God’s will.
Grace is God giving to us what we don’t deserve (whereas mercy is God
not doing to us what we do deserve).
It’s this grace that Paul has that enables him to write about the
subject of spiritual gifts.
Paul writes “to
every one of you” so these words apply to every single believer. He will be writing about spiritual gifts that
every single believer has, but first he writes about every single believer to
watch how you think about yourself.
Basically a believer is never to be in love with yourself more than you
are to love others. Indeed, the second
great commandment of Christ is “to love your neighbor as you love
yourself”.
As Paul will be
describing spiritual gifts in Romans 12:4-8, some gifts are more prominent than
others. For example a person with a gift
of teaching/preaching is certainly more in the limelight than a person with the
gift of service. Yet, whatever gift you
have, you were given that gift by the grace of God, not because of your own
merit. So you have no right to think
more highly of yourself than you ought.
What you are to think is a humble evaluation of who you are in the light
of God’s grace. Your ego must not be
part of what and how you think about yourself.
Someone once said, “Humility is seeing things as they are; pride is
seeing things in a puffed up way that feeds the ego and self-love”.
You are to think of
yourself “with sober judgment”. Sober
judgment is linked with “the measure of faith” given to you by God. The word Paul used for “sober” is “sophroneo”
that means a sound mind or one under self-control. II Timothy 1:7 uses this same word when the
verse states that God gave His people not a spirit of timidity but of power,
love and a sound mind. Sober judgment is
a sincere, humble, and Spirit-controlled evaluation of whom you are in light of
God’s grace given to you. When you are
given a lot of talent, when you have a lot of abilities and, yes, spiritual
giftedness, it is very difficult to hold down your ego, yet you must or you are
outside the will of God.
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