"Let no man deceive himself....Let no man glory in men", I Corinthians 3:18, 21. Perhaps two of the most valuable commandments given in the entire book of Corinthians. I have a preacher friend whom I have often heard say that if there were 11 Commandments, the 11th would surely have been "thou shalt not kid thyself". How fitting and forthcoming of a statement for the vanity and carnality that is so common in 'christian' ranks today. Nothing must be more disgusting in the sight of God than to see men parading and promoting themselves as some great one, and using none other than the platform of their 'christianity' to do so. That is exactly what Paul was rebuking here in this very chapter. Of all men who could have 'rightly' paraded and promoted his spirituality, who would dare deny the Apostle Paul that right? Yet, his true spirituality brought forth a stinging rebuke to those who were claiming to be his disciples. In a spirit of humility he declared himself to be nothing more than a servant and a laborer. He assigned to himself the most menial of titles.
We see this same problem in the Lord's churches today, taking on so many various manifestations. If honest, we are all inclined, in our flesh, to brag on our deep spirituality, especially when we are among our peers at church. How very unnecessary are our personal praise reports of how many people we have given tracts to, and how great our sacrifices have been for Jesus, and how deep our humility, and how close our walk with God. Sometimes we are all but saying...."oh, if you could only attain to my level". May we all please give the Lord a great blessing, and do each other a tremendous favor, and stop the parading and promoting of our own great spirituality. It is true that there is no higher calling than serving the Lord.......but servants need not brag!
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Good post brother! My name is Steven Banks and I am from Massillon Ohio, Cornerstone Baptist Church actually. We are the family that has adopted you as our missionaries but we have not been able to contact you at least by email. This is the next best thing. I would like to send you the email that I sent out previously. It seems I can receive emails from you ok but you cannot receive from me. Let me know if there is a better way to correspond; maybe I will try sending from my wife's email address and see if that works. You can write back at:
swbanks@kent.edu
Brother Hammett,
My name is Steven
Banks and I am from Massillon Ohio. I wrote you before because we have
adopted you as missionaries! Unfortunately I do not have the email I
sent before so I could not just resend it.
Anyways I and my wife and my son go to Cornerstone Baptist Church and our church supports you and your family. Our church started an adopt a
missionary thing and I thought it was a good idea and I desire to be a missionary somewhere in the world before the Lord takes me home. We saw your video of what God was doing there in South Africa and it was
a blessing to me. So we decided to adopt your family as our
missionaries. You guys are also young like us - I am 26, my wife 28 and our son is 7 months old.
Well let me tell you a bit about myself. I was saved when I was 21
years old. I grew up Catholic and had my first personal gospel witness
from a friend when I was 18. He had me pray a sinners prayer but I
didnt understand true salvation at the time. Three years later I was
reading an article about hell and God made it personal to me and I
realized I needed to get saved. Well God did save me, praise His
name! He has been working in my life in a great way ever since.
I graduated from Kent State University and I work at a software
company called Virtual Hold and have been there for 3.5 years. I dont
want to be there forever; I want God to use me to preach the gospel
somewhere in this world. Right now it is in the U.S. but many folks
are disinterested and hardened to the gospel. God is still working
here though and I have seen the fruit of that in many peoples lives.
My wife just got saved in May after a week of revival meetings. She and I both thought she was saved 8 years ago but there has been doubt
in her heart for a while now and she realized that all she did was
pray a prayer but no conviction of sin. Praise God that she is now
gloriously saved!
Well I would love to know more about you and your family. Things like
how you were saved, how you and your wife met, how God called you to
South Africa. I also realize you might not have time to write all that
stuff and that is ok. You must be extremely busy ministering there in
South Africa and that is a good thing.
I heard that you send out updates to your church on a weekly or so
basis. Is there any way I would be able to get those so I can better
pray for you? I pray for you every day during the week but I would
like to better know what to pray for.
Hopefully we will be able to keep up dialogue. Take care brother and the Lord bless you and
your family.
Steve Banks
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