02/08/2018
Are you a humble person before God? Do you relinquish your will to Him in every aspect? For some of us humility is a bitter pill to swallow; we are filled to the brim with pride and see no reason to kneel. Yet scripture is adamant regarding this point... we are to be humble, and as a matter of fact we are told to be humble before God, and men, alike.
“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”
1 Peter 5:6-7 ESV
Being humble is not the natural state for people. Certainly I have met those whose personality is a more humble one, but even they can be what we now call passive aggressive... they are humble by appearance, that is on the surface, but carry an undercurrent of pride within. They use humble words to achieve an aggressive agenda. Naturally humble people are truly rare, but we know of one who did exist... Jesus.
Our society refers to humble people with rather unkind expressions. They are called such things as “beaten down”, spineless, “weak kneed”, and many other such descriptive names with negative connotations. I am certain that Pontius Pilot looked at the man Jesus standing before him and thought many of these same things... yet the humility of Christ is not a weakness, but rather, incredible strength.
The strength we find in humility is not in its meekness, but in what it takes to lay down our pride. My mother loves Dalmatian dogs, but this breed is known to be stubborn or by another description we use for certain dogs... they are “one man dogs.” In other words they are hard to train and have a “mind of their own.”
When we returned from Europe, my mother bought a Dalmatian puppy. This dog came into a home with five children, and yet by its very nature it wanted to be dominate. By example... My job each night was to feed the dog, but once I placed the food in his dish I couldn’t touch that dish again without a growl or a snap. I endured this for a few nights, but finally realized that I couldn’t let this go on. So one night I put the food into the dish and purposely reached for it as he ate. The response was immediate, and in a swift motion I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and threw him across the room. I was careful not to harm him, but I was exerting my dominance. He came back to his dish and I repeated this a few more times until at last I could take the dish from him at will with no growl, no snap... he had submitted himself to me... he had chosen to humble himself. When this happened, I picked him up in my arms and loved on him, and gave him a special treat.
It took a great deal of restraint for my dog to go against his inbred nature, and submit to my hand; for many of us this is how we learn to humble ourselves before God; we force Him to discipline our pride, and teach us humility. We have terms for this as well... we are “hard headed”, belligerent, or “strong willed.” Scripture tells us that God rewards our submission to His will... our humbling before Him. If we read on in 1 Peter 5 we find this as well. Here we read that God picks us up, and loves on us. He gives us a special treat... His attention, acknowledgement, and grace...
“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”
1 Peter 5:10 ESV
In the days following my training incident regarding the food dish and my hand, there were other lessons as Duke, the dog, learned to humble, and subject himself to the other children. This is the same in our faith... God wants us to place His will before our own, but He also wants us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Loving our neighbors also requires us to treat them with humility; it requires that our pride be defeated and that their needs be considered on equal footing with our own. It is one thing to be humble before the God of the Universe, but something quite different to humble ourselves with our peers, and more than that... those our pride tells us are beneath us.
“Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."”
1 Peter 5:5 ESV
Defeating our pride, and becoming humble takes great strength. The greater our position in life, our intelligence, our treasure is, then the more pronounced the role that pride within us becomes, and the more strength and self control it takes to overcome it. Some are born with an innate ability to control their pride, some appear to have this but inwardly struggle, and others are just outright prideful; whatever our inclination, God’s requirement is the same... humility. But, beware, because even when it appears that we have won the battle against our flagrant pride Satan can resurrect it as a subtle and destructive form of pride... pride in our own humility.
We can be proud of our humbleness; we can look at another and say to ourselves “I am more humble than they are”, and make this a form of self-pride. This kind of pride is especially pervasive in the church. When this occurs we have lost our alignment with the will of God, and the battle for our subjugation begins anew. This is a snare, a tool of Satan, and a return of the old man that we once thought had been defeated, but rest assured that you are not alone in this struggle, and that all are tempted by it.
“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.”
1 Peter 5:8-9 ESV
So humility requires strength, and we are strengthened by God. We find that we must be humble before we can place the will of God before our own, and even before we can love our neighbors. Then, we see that Satan is undone by our humility, and attempts to interject pride once again as a means of undercutting and destroying the very virtue that allows us to serve God. There is a struggle of mighty proportion between our will and God’s will... between good and evil, between the person we are and who we desire to become... and it all hinges on the key struggle between our pride and humility.
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for your lessons in humility, and the example of the humble nature of Jesus that teaches us about the strength we have in our weakness, and the grace that comes from placing your will before our own. I thank you for standing with me against the wiles of Satan as he attempts to take the fruit of this lesson, my humility, and turn it into another form of pride. I place my protection in your hands Father, and I trust in your deliverance from his temptation. Perfect my humility Lord as I place your will before my own, and the love of my neighbor on par with my well being. Praised be your name Holy Father, and my desire is that you take pleasure as I prostrate myself before you, and submit my will humbly to yours. Great are you, and greatly to be praised!
Rich Forbes