Pride Versus Humility

Humility, God is for. Humility is always, as I said, the virtue of the righteous. Throughout the Scripture, we don’t even have time to begin to touch base with every Scripture dealing with humility, but listen to a few. Proverbs 15.33 says, Before honour is humility. Proverbs 22.4, By humility and the fear of the Lord, our riches are honour of life. Proverbs 27.2, Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth. That’s pretty practical. And if you ever get the feeling that you’re hot stuff, Isaiah 51 first said to that same generation of people in Israel, Look to the rock whence you are hewn, and the hole of the pit from whence you’ve been dug.

Have you forgotten where you came from? If you have any tendency to be proud, go back to Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1-3, and read about yourself being dead in trespasses and sin, walking according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that worketh in the sons of disobedience. Read that you there were guided by the lusts of the flesh and of the mind, and the desires of the flesh were the things that motivated you. And you were, by nature, a child of wrath.

Remind yourself of who you are when you want to be proud. Humility is a basic ingredient for all spiritual blessing. Before any honour is humility. The Proverbs are right. God will only bless the humble. You know, I think sometimes that we forget how important this is. Every sin, I don’t care what it is, has as its root pride, because all sin is a defiance of God and his right to be God and to have holiness. All sin is pride. And I really think that sometimes we grapple on the periphery and never deal with the issue.

For example, there are families that have problems. Their kids are problems. They have problems. Mom and dad, husband and wife have problems. And maybe the guy has a problem at his work. And they’re people with just a lot of problems. And sometimes they’ll come in and they’ll want to, how do I do this? Give me a better method to reach my family. Or how do I construct a family devotion? Or how do I do this? Or how can I get my family fixed up when the real issue is just pride? Because they’ll never be unity in the family.

They’ll never be honour in the family. They’ll never be the grace of life in the family. They’ll never be happiness in the family until there’s humility in the person involved. I don’t care what you’ve done for the Lord. I don’t care if you founded churches, founded missions, had great ministries, gone to church all your life, read your Bible, prayed. If you’ve never walked in humility, you don’t know what it is to walk a worthy walk. That’s what God’s saying to us. Because the worthy walk begins with all loneliness. You can’t even be saved without humility.

In Matthew chapter 18, Jesus said, except you become as a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. And then he said, you must humble yourself as this little child. You can’t even be a Christian unless you come in humility. Until you come to God and say, I’m a sinner and I deserve nothing and I’m worthy of nothing, you can’t be saved. You can’t go into God’s presence and say, God, it’s me. You know the one you’ve heard so much about. Would you? Here’s my press release. I have my master’s degree, my doctor’s degree, and I have a benevolent merit award from the…

See? No. You approach God in humility as a sinner. That’s the only way to be saved. There’s no other way into the family of God. And there’s no other way to walk once you’re in there. That’s the only way. That’s the only standard. In Luke chapter 18, and I think it’s verse 13, I’ll read it to you. You don’t need to look it up. And the tax collector. Remember the publican and the sinner in the temple? Standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote on his breast saying, God, be merciful to me as a sinner.

I tell you, said Jesus, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For every one that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be what? Exalted. Humility is the standard of salvation. Now, let’s go back to Ephesians and look at the text itself. We know now that the Bible emphasizes humility as over against pride. And people, it isn’t easy in our society. Really, it isn’t. You know, I see, I see, and I look at our society, and I see the temptation in my own life to just continually pile up stuff that exalts me, that lifts me up.

You know, having a better this and a better house, or a better car, or better clothes, or more recognition, or fancier stuff of one kind or another to sort of put me up. And then you get the mentality that starts looking down and despising people underneath you. It’s so wrong. And you forfeit God’s blessing. You don’t walk worthy. You’re not going to know his blessing. So he calls us to the worthy walk in verse 1. He says, I beseech you, really. I, the prisoner of the Lord, that you walk worthy of the vocation to which you’re called.

That’s the call to the worthy walk. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of pride versus humility. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always leave the way. [tr:trw].