eNews | July ‘26 | Evicting Small Mindedness
Small-mindedness is a destructive force. It seduces us to set low limits on our lives. It causes us to settle for little when God longs to bless us with abundance.
Perhaps the most pernicious effect of the poor self-image is the spirit of poverty that accompanies it. It feeds on the assumption that God’s best blessings are reserved for super-saints and spiritual megastars, but not for us.
Sometime ago when speaking to a congregation on this subject, I asked the following question: “If I told you that on the way to the service tonight, God had spoken to me and said that everyone in the meeting was going to be blessed except one person, how many of you would immediately conclude that you were the ‘one person’ referred to?” Around 75 per cent of the people raised their hand!
There are always those who feel it is presumption to expect God to be generous towards them; to develop ministries and gifting within their life; to extend the borders of their faith. They have concluded, mistakenly, that the essence of humility is to be found in posing as weak and unworthy. They do the Devil’s job for him. It is his role to undermine faith and sabotage our potential usefulness; not ours. We play straight into his hands when we hinder and quench the work of the Holy Spirit within our lives. God does not enrich us for our benefit alone. He blesses us that we might be a blessing. He calls us to be tributaries rather than reservoirs. We can only give out that which we have received.
Consider the following verses and, having done so, examine your heart to see how easy it is to distance yourself from their applications. Read and re-read them until you can believe that they apply to your life. When you have done that, surround your current needs within the solid wall of their truth.
“‘What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived’ — the things God has prepared for those who love Him — these are the things God has revealed to us by His Spirit.’
‘And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the Church...’2
Failure to lock out small-mindedness emanates from a spirit of poverty and a false perception of the sovereignty of God. Those who see the sovereignty of God in terms of passive fatalism will never be filled with the fullness that God desires for them. The posture that articulates ‘If God is going to bless me, then He will and I need not endeavour to grow bigger...’ is totally unbiblical.
The Scriptures continually encourage Christians to strive for perfection, to develop, to covet earnestly the best gifts. Such objectives are not obtained by default. They take place as the individual sets their sights on God’s best and stretches every spiritual fibre to attain it.
Three security mechanisms need to be activated to ensure an adequate defence against small-mindedness.
Set Goals — Not Limits
According to the Apostle Paul, a person never reaches their limit until they have attained ‘the measure of the fullness of God’ and, by any standards, that’s full! Those who have stopped growing, whose progress has come to a standstill and whose vision has long since ceased to stretch to new horizons effectively set their own self-imposed limits. Though an army of excuses be marshalled, the truth is that their argument articulates the suggestion that they know better than God what their ultimate potential is. Each year an oak tree produces enough acorns to populate a good-sized forest. The fact is that only one or two of those seeds ever become a tree — unaccommodating ground and platoons of squirrels see to that.
Every Christian has the potential to live a holy life, win people for Christ, be used in service, be an encourager and exercise spiritual gifts — apart from other areas of achievement. It is not always direct action by the Devil that causes inaction and fruitlessness. All too often growth is stunted by the inhospitable environment of mediocrity and self-imposed limits.
This is an excerpt from John’s exciting new book COVERING - a security system for the soul,due to be published in the autumn.
John Glass entered ministry in 1968, pastoring and planting churches across England, Scotland and Wales and is the author of several books including Open Heart, Open Hands and The Best is Yet to Come. In 2017 was awarded the Lambeth Cross by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
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