By Grace Sweeney.
Arrogance:
An attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions.
(Merriam Webster)
Pride:
Exaggerated self-esteem.
(Merriam Webster)
Humility:
freedom from pride or arrogance
(Merriam Webster)
Pride. The self-centered, entitled, snobbish trait. So different from it's opposite, humility.
Most of us would like to say we’re humble. It's the virtue admired by everyone, one of the virtues the Bible highly endorses, and the virtue that is one of the most beautiful a person can possess.
But when it comes down to it, we often choose pride. Instead of humbling ourselves to serve, we expect others to do the cleaning. Instead of rejoicing in someone else's accomplishment, we try to one-up them by bragging about our own achievements.
Humility means to think less of yourself than others. Philippians 2:3 says to "count others more significant than yourselves." While pride elevates a person, humility lowers them.
As I've been thinking about humility recently, I've come to realize that there are four main attributes to humility.
1. A humble person is submissive.
Humility means we’re submissive, both to God and to other people. The mark of a humble person is when they're willing to lay aside their own wishes for the good of someone else, or lay down their will and flesh to follow Christ.
Jesus is the Son of God. He rules in Heaven, where He has everything he could ever want, and he lives with the Heavenly Father. He created the universe. He is over everything and everyone.
But even with all that, Jesus was the most humble person ever. He even submitted himself to death on a cross, which was the absolute worst way to die.
He submitted Himself to the will of the Father, thereby saving us from our sins.
That's what we need to be willing to imitate with the Lord’s help. Such sacrificial love can only come from God, and Jesus in his humility showed it perfectly.
2. A humble person is teachable.
Do you remember the Pharisees in the New Testament? They were the religious teachers of Israel, the most esteemed, respected people in society. They had the best seats at all the dinners, everyone made way for them in the streets, everyone looked up to and admired them. They were the ones supposed to lead the people to follow God.
Instead, they grew prideful with their position and most of them were anything but humble. When Jesus came, instead of having a teachable heart, and being willing to listen to Him and repent from their sins, they resisted Him and eventually killed Him.
Humility means being teachable, and willing to admit we were wrong. It means being willing to let other people or God teach us what we need to know.
3. Humility means being filled with faith.
Prideful people put their confidence in themselves. They trust in themselves and their money and their possessions to take care of them. They don't need God.
They are enough.
But that's not right, We do need God, for everything, and a humble person will admit that and humble themselves beneath God. Humility means realizing that we aren't supreme, and having faith that God will take care of us, even when things seem hopeless. We can’t rely on ourselves for anything.
Read this passage from Matthew 8:
"When [Jesus] had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly." And he said to him, "I will come and heal him." But the centurion replied, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, 'Go,' and he goes, and to another, 'Come,' and he comes, and to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it." When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, "Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith." (Matthew 8:4-10)
Jesus went on to heal his servant, from a great distance, because of the humble faith of the centurion. I don't know about you, but that kind of humility is definitely something I want to have.
4. A humble person is self-forgetful.
Philippians 2:3-4 says, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." We're supposed to think of others as more important and put them before ourselves.
Timothy Keller wrote, "Gospel-humility is not needing to think about myself. Not needing to connect things with myself. It is an end to thoughts such as, 'I'm in this room with these people, does that make me look good? Do I want to be here?' True gospel-humility means I stop connecting every experience, every conversation, with myself. In fact, I stop thinking about myself."
When Jesus washed the disciples' feet at the Last Supper, he told them that although He was their Lord and Teacher, he had taken on the work of a lowly servant in washing their feet. He told them to do the same thing, and that command still applies to us today.
If we think of ourselves as a lowly servant and are always ready to serve, we have begun to learn humility well and our Lord will be pleased.
The most important part of humility is the act of humbling ourselves before God. A humble heart before the Lord means that we realize that we are not the most important, and we value and serve Him above everything else. That sounds so easy and simple, but goodness knows I've fallen into the trap of self-importance more times than I could count. We always have to be careful to keep the Lord above everything else, especially our own self.
Randy Alcorn writes in his book Happiness that "As commendable as such humility is, we can never achieve it simply by willing it to appear. Otherwise, we'll be thinking about ourselves and our valiant attempt to be humble. What we need is to be so gripped by Jesus and his grace that we truly forget about ourselves. Why would we want to think about ourselves, the lesser, when we can think about him, the infinitely greater?"
God honors humility. Those who put themselves below others while here on Earth, will be exalted in Heaven (Luke 14:11). Let's pray and ask God to show us how we can have humility every day, in order that our hearts might shine with the beauty of a humble servant for Christ.
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