Master’s Arts—12
1.	God’s Word—Faith in God
2.	Jesus’ Love for us—Loving Him in return—Communing
3.	Holy Spirit Empowerment—Gifts and Fruits of the Spirit used
4.	Praise and Joy and Contentment—Words and thoughts Glorifying God
5.	Prayer and Intercession—Rebuking and fighting the enemy
6.	Prophecy and Direct revelation—Communication and Guidance from God
7.	Angels and Ministering Spirits—Resisting and binding all evil
8.	Keys of the kingdom—Desiring God’s Will—Giving no place to the enemy
9.	Heavenly Vision—Thoughts of God—Mind’s meditations only what pleases the Lord
10.	Love and Charity—Forgiveness—Unity, fellowship, brotherhood
11.	Resting in the Lord—Loving, learning, labouring, and living with Him; letting Him do it through us
12.	Humility—Resist pride—God alone is the judge, no self-righteousness
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Humility—Resist pride—God alone is the judge, no self-righteousness
(Jesus speaking: ) You’ll have a happier life if you don’t let those troubling thoughts corrupt your thinking—thoughts of who is doing better; who is doing worse; what things are wrong and need judging or punishing. Will you please tell Me instead when something is troubling you, and let Me do what I know is best? Sometimes I’ll wait; sometimes I’ll act right away. I know the way to the human heart and mind better than any, for I designed it, remember? Tell me what is troubling you that others are doing—even what is angering you. Put it on My “To Take Care Of” list. Then you can relax and not go thinking and conjuring up negative thoughts about others. Remember, if you see something that isn’t good in others, that’s just a tip of something much bigger that is right about them—the big part that I can see. Realise it is there, and trust Me to fix whatever isn’t quite right. You’ll have a lot more fun in life—and have more room for love in your life too. Let Me be the one to say what is truly right, and to fix what isn’t.
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(Jesus speaking: ) Having a spirit of humility is like putting on the finest and most royal, kingly, queenly, garments. That is the dress code of Heaven. When you are wearing the covering of Heavenly humility, then you look royal and like you belong to the clan of Heaven, part of the ruling class—part of God’s team. So put on humility, take off pride, and you’ll be looking awesome and shining. When pride is your reaction, otherwise known as your covering, it dulls the light that you could be shining with. Let Me shine through, by walking in humility and letting Me be your leader, shepherd and guide; and showing love through making others feel they are better than you—for in many ways they are, if you are honest; and in many ways you are better than them too, if they are honest. You each shine in your unique and special ways. It’s pride to feel bad just because someone is better in something. Humility rejoices that I can shine through others. This world needs all the light it can get. Be glad for all the light that shines through others, and let your own light shine brightly too—through humility. 
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(Jesus speaking: ) Here’s an illustration: A mother poured a glass of orange juice for a child. He comes in from weeding the garden in the hot sun, ready for a drink. His hands are all muddy. He takes the glass gratefully, smearing soil on it before he realised that he didn’t wash his hands yet. Quickly he goes to wash them and then returns. But he is disgusted to see that the cup his mother gave him to drink from is all dirty. He has forgotten the cause for it. “Ugh! What a dirty glass! Mother, why have you given me such a dirty glass to drink from? You must not love me very much. You must think I am not worthy of the good things you give to others,” he says, looking over at his brother’s now empty glass that has not a speck of soil on it.
“The glass I provided you with was clean and good, and I do love you. But to show you that I forgive you—both for soiling the glass with your own unwashed hands, as well as saying untrue things about me, about how I must not love you— I will give you a new fresh glass to use. And I’ll wash this one as well,” mother says.
The boy feeling somewhat reproved, and humbled, thanks his mother.  He thinks to himself that the next time he thinks someone had done him wrong, or hasn’t given him the treatment he wishes for, and something seems wrong, he’ll stop to think if it was due to his own mistake. He didn’t mean to soil up the cup, and after all it was because he had been doing something good and working hard. Mistakes and oversights can happen, even when we are doing good things. But he won’t be too quick next time to place the blame on others, and feel upset. He’ll choose to forgive and overlook a simple mistake—and he might find in the end, the other person wasn’t to blame after all, and he’ll be glad he didn’t hold it against them. 
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(Jesus speaking: ) Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God. This is what the scripture says, and what I say to you again, for in this is the secret to humility. And those that are humble are able to draw nigh to Me, for I resist the proud, but give grace and comfort to the humble. Those that draw near to Me I can empower, for as it says, “They that do know their God shall be strong.” If you want to be strong and do great things for Me, then you need to be humble. And being loving or striving to be so is a great way to let humility shine, and to shed yourself of slimy, grimy, unpleasant, sticky, icky pride. Love sometimes hurts, because when pride is being shed it can be a bit painful. But then when you splash into the pool of humility and wash off all the black slime and grime, and do something really, honestly loving for someone else—something that perhaps you don’t even seem to benefit from at all, then it all feels right again. You wonder what ever attracted you to go into the slime pit of pride, like the slime pits that were used to build some of man’s big, proud buildings and structures. Instead of being up high and making a name for yourself, you go down low, where the pool of refreshing water is. This is the pool of humility and giving love to others.  You don’t worry if people know how dirty you were and how much you must have needed to wash. You look away from their critical looks as you take off the ugly and stained garments and just have a good wash in the pool of humility. And when you get out, you’ll see that your freshly washed soul has new muscles and extra strength. Giving love has made you stronger. 
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(Jesus speaking: ) Why can’t you accurately tell who is good and doing well, and who is wrong and doing poorly? Because I, your Lord and King and the true Judge of the Earth am the only one with the accurate scales for knowing proper weights and measures. You see so little of the view. It’s like a person seeing a tiny part of a wing of an airplane and trying to estimate just how big of an object it is. They might think it’s part of a pot in someone’s kitchen, or someone else might think it’s part of the wall of an elevator.  I can see all, and inside of all, I know just the size, weight, and ability of each thing on Earth. More importantly I can see each person, inside and out. I know their life span and what they have done in it. I know why they did what they did. When you see something someone has done and you start to judge it using your own brain’s weighing scales, rulers, containers, thermometers, and other methods you try to use, you might not reach the accurate conclusion. You only see a part of the situation and person, but I see all. Realise this: you can ever, ever get a true and right on, totally accurate conclusion about someone, for you only see a very small part of the picture. So leave it up to Me. Tell Me if you have a question, or something hurt you, or someone is doing something out of line and you think they need to be set right. I’ll listen and be the judge and make the right things happen—both for you and for them. Don’t try to swap jobs with Me, okay? Let Me do what I know how to do best, and then you’ll be happier for it.
Think of it this way. If all you saw was a zoomed in image of the brown spot on the peel of a banana, perhaps even a fruit fly landing on it, would you say it was something good that should be kept, or something bad to be discarded? But if you saw the full image and realised it was a ripe banana, ready to eat and sweet, it would change your whole opinion. So if someone is doing something that to you seems real bad, and you hardly see something good about them, or you don’t care to have them around most of the time, realise there is a very big part that is good, that you with your mental microscope aren’t seeing. Ask Me, their Lord and Maker, to give you a new way of seeing things, or to just have faith that there is lots more that you don’t know. Love them by faith. Trust that I know what I am doing.  Remember that smooth and green coloured bananas aren’t edible and taste terrible if you try to eat them. But the ones that are looking old and getting a bit spotted are the best. They are sweet and easy to work with. So just because some people have some spots and blemishes, some things that don’t seem totally right about them, and things aren’t always so smooth about them, maybe inside their heart they are good and sweet. It’s taken Me time to teach them many things, just like it takes time for a banana to ripen. If something doesn’t look great, try using a different sense, not only going by sight. Maybe your sense of smell, or feel, or taste will help you find the good—that I knew all along was there. Try talking with someone, or doing something fun together, or singing a song of praise together with them. These kinds of things will help you to see and discover different sides to their nature. You still won’t see the full picture of the real them, A-Z, for only I, their Maker knows all, but it might make it easier for you to forgive their faults and failings—the “banana spots” that come with age, maturing, time, and conditions. Try to look beyond, inside, to find their sweetness and soft heart.