Humility

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.
(Philippians 2:3-4)

Without Jesus Christ as Lord of our life, we live for ourselves. Pride is found in the core of our being as we look at ourselves as the measure of everything else. If we have a higher view of ourselves than what God has said, we look down from above others in our pride. If in our pain and brokenness, we believe that we are the lowest of the low and that God would have no interest in us, it is our false humility, which is another form of pride that drives us. But when Christ gets ahold of us, we being to see ourselves in a new light, his light. By grace, our pride is revealed for what it is, sin, and in following the Lord Jesus, we find ourselves set free in the truth. As we grow in our love and knowledge of Christ, we are drawn to him by his humility. He is so different than anyone else in the world. We reach the point where we humble ourselves in complete submission to his lordship. Humility takes the place of pride. No longer are we seeking to serve ourselves or looking to be served, but we offer ourselves as living sacrifices to our God. We serve others in the humbleness of our love for God and our faith in the promises He has made. We don't see our own humility, but others notice that we look like Jesus.

Growth towards Christian maturity

Pride

A self-centered life is the only life we know how to live apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the only way we can live and the only life that appeals to us. We have no interest in living a life of humble service before God. We don't want to risk people taking advantage of us or walking over us. We want our fair share that we believe we have earned and deserve. If someone takes advantage of us, we seek revenge or some other ways of having things turn around for our favor. The idea that there is sin in this world and that we are sinners, is crazy talk to us. Thus, when bad things happen to us, our perspective doesn't lead us to cry out to God or to pray for those who harm us. We seek after that which we feel is in our best interest. The truth be told, humility is simply not appealing. Our pride gets in the way of our being humble. We have a view of ourselves that doesn't align with God's desire for us. We either believe we are way better than we really are or we think of ourselves in a manner that is far below what God says about human beings. We are full of pride. At one end of the spectrum, it is our pride that makes us think more highly of ourselves than we ought. Pride leads us to boast about ourselves and what we have achieved. It causes us to view others as inferior to us and leads to us belittling others, which in keeps us in bondage to our superior view of ourselves. On the other end of the spectrum, it is pride in the form of false humility that leads us to believe the lie that we are of little or no value. Instead of boasting about ourselves, we speak of how worthless we are, if we speak at all. We see our life as not mattering and we certainly cannot believe that God would see any value in us. We have believed the lies and deception that start with the enemy of our soul and is spewed out upon us through the negative messages we take in about us from the world and those who have hurt us. We cannot see our brokenness as the bondage it is, and in the pride of our false humility, we see ourselves as of no worth. We wouldn't describe ourselves as prideful, but that is what we are. We are not humble in this state, but rather bringing forth a false humility. True humility causes us to see ourselves in the light of the truth of God and to live in that light.

Jesus Challenges My Pride

When we encounter with Christ, his words of truth begin to chip away at our pride. Through the Holy Spirit convicting us of the sin of pride, God makes us aware of our issues of pride. One by one, we are confronted with the truth about ourselves and given the opportunity to confess them before God in repentance. As we respond to the truth about ourselves as He reveals it to us, His truth sets us free from the bondages we have been enslaved under. Our pride begins to crumble as we surrender continuously to the work of the Spirit within us. We are seeing what pride really is and we are renouncing our pride. Areas in which we esteemed ourselves more highly than we ought, we find ourselves willingly humbled before the Lord. We start to see ourselves in a new light as a child of God saved from sin and death. In those areas where we thought ourselves of no value or someone whom God would never notice, we find that God actually sees us as being of great value simply because we are His creation. We recognize that the lies we have believed and allowed to shape us come from the sin and brokenness of those who don't know Christ. We are set free from our captivity, no longer holding onto the pride of our false humility, but holding onto the truth in God's word that we belong to Christ. We realize that our life was being driven by pride, even if we hadn't noticed it beforehand. Now we are learning to listen to the Lord and to surrender our pride.

Submission to Christ

As we continue to grow and mature in Christ, we find that our focus is shifting more and more from ourselves to Jesus Christ. There comes a point in our life when we see him in a grander light than we had up to this point. We see Jesus as Lord in light of his humility. His humility demonstrates his great love for us and draws us to him. We grasp the truth that our Lord is not setting before us a list of rules to follow, but offering to live his life in us. Once we thought that we were to live by a set of rules, rules that we set or in some cases set by others or even God. Now we see that we are called not to submit to rules, our own or those of others, but to live a life in full submission to the person of Jesus Christ. In our submitting to Christ in love, our focus continues shifting away from ourselves to Christ. We find in ourselves a stirring to be more like him. We may not be thinking in terms of humility, but that is what it is. We are crucifying our pride for the sake of living for Christ. The changes taking place within us amaze us and shock us. We are shocked as we wonder how we have lived so long without seeing who we really are. But we are also amazed to see the changes that God has brought about in us. Our perspective on life and ourselves is very different than it used to be. We may not recognize it, but people are seeing the change. Some may not understand what has happened to us, but those who are in Christ are seeing Christ in us. We are looking more and more like Jesus.

A Living Sacrifice

The closer we walk with Christ, the greater our desire to see God glorified. In surrendering to Jesus as our Lord and dying to ourselves, God is glorified for we are willingly bowing our knee before Jesus who is reigning over our life. No longer does our old self have power or dominion in our life. Christ, who has all authority in heaven and on earth, has authority over our life. We are seeking for God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven as we treat His name as holy. It is out of the great love and joy that the Holy Spirit is bearing in us, that we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to the Lord. We have humbled ourselves before the throne of God, whom we approach boldly through the blood of Christ. Within us is a humility that we have not produced. It is not an artificial humility by which we force ourselves to do the things the Lord calls us to do. It is a humility that comes from Christ in us, that enables us to focus on giving ourselves for the sake of others. This humility we have often goes unnoticed by us since we are not focused on ourselves. When we do look at ourselves, we are amazed at what we see because we see Christ, not ourselves. Our life is being lived for the glory of God. What happens to our body is of little consequence to us for we know that if we live it is for Christ and when we die it will be gain. Our pride is gone for Christ has made us into a new creation. A creation that looks like Jesus as it honors our heavenly Father.