The Absence of Humility

“He who is greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself [with haughtiness and empty pride] shall be humbled (brought low), and whoever humbles himself [whoever has a modest opinion of himself and behaves accordingly] shall be raised to honor.”  Matthew 23:11-12 (AMP)

It’s a rare Saturday morning to be at home. It’s my 50^th birthday and a time to look back at what our gracious and heavenly Father has brought me through. “What I have really gleaned from the many life lesson’s along the way?” I ask myself. Well brothers there have been many but in His infinite wisdom He has brought unto me a new challenge. I have to deal with the absence of humility in my heart.

It really starts with a book that my “brother from another mother” recommend I read. Pastor Andrew Dixon has been a close friend for much of my salvation/restoration walk and now he has the challenge of guiding me through the call to ministry. Pastor Andrew has me reading Andrew Murray’s “Humility” and after just a few chapters into it I was deeply convicted. Because of this I have to go back into what Jesus teaches about humility and realize I have been reading it all wrong.

With this in mind I need to share this paragraph from the book:

“In the life of earnest Christians, of those who pursue and profess holiness, humility ought to the chief mark of their uprightness. It is often said that it is not so. One reason may be that in the teaching and example of the Church, humility has never had that place of supreme importance which rightfully belongs to it. This results from the neglect of this truth: that although sin is a powerful motive to humility, there is one of still wider and mightier influence—that which makes the angels, that which made Jesus, that which makes the holiest of saints in heaven, so humbles. That is, that the first and chief mark of the relationship of man with God, the secret of His blessedness, is the humility and nothingness which leaves God free to be all.”

No one in the time of Jesus’ time on earth took a beating like the Scribes and the Pharisees. They, like us at times, cloaked their pride and worldliness with religion. These men of the Sanhedrin would have been schooled deeply in the prophecy of the coming Messiah and yet with Jesus Christ right in front of them they would try to convince the multitudes to take prejudice against the Son of Joseph, the neighborhood carpenter. And it would be this same Son of the neighborhood carpenter that would gather His bewildered disciples for the Passover supper and wash their feet before “He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a Cross.”

So like I was saying earlier on, I need to go back and re-read the Savior’s words. It’s not that I feel I have missed something; it’s just that I thought the idea of humility meant not to think myself more highly than I ought to. But there seems to be more to it than that, it basically needs to be understood that pride is the absence of humility in the heart. That when Jesus says go the extra mile or give them your other tunic, He really says that you should display less of yourself and more of Him. He did it for us by going to that Cross because it was the will of the Father and it’s that will the unsaved world needs to see. Amen? – Chris Hughes is a part of the Freedom Fighter writing team and a graduate of the Colony of Mercy

Daily Bible Reading: Hosea 9-11; Proverbs 12; Revelation 3

Quote of the day: “When we see that humility is something infinitely deeper than contrition, and accept it as our participation in the life of Jesus, we will begin to learn that it is our true nobility.”—Andrew Murray

Bible Memory: Level 1: James 4:17  Level 2: James 5:1-6

Prayer Quotes:  Never make the blunder of trying to forecast the way God is going to answer your prayer. Oswald Chambers