so I was at a friend's lakehouse the other day and we were all in the boat talking about how the day had gone when my friend says yeah and remember when Austin did such a great job blah blah blah....as he brought me up as a topic about how good I had done tubing, I immediately felt pride come swelling up in my chest. I practically stuck my chest out and smiled as he was talking. As this happened, I thought about how foolish my heart was to act as though my simple water tubing experience proved that I was the best there ever could be. The simple fact that I was above the rest practically turned me to boasting about myself. I can really understand that verse in the Bible that says the heart is deceitfully wicked above all things because I experienced it that day. We all crave this power and position to know that others either look up to us or rely upon us and it is totally against the very nature of who we are as humans to practice humility amongst people. If anyone deserved to gloat about their power and be totally prideful it would be the God of all creation. He has the One who created life itself and sustains it throughout eternity, to Him every knee will bow and tongue confess, and to Him angels in glory unceasingly serve Him throughout eternity yet what does He do? He looks upon mankind's situation with love and humbles Himself so much as to take upon our filthiest acts of adultery, murder, greed, lying, and so forth to the point of the Father looking away from Him in shame. He chose to be rejected by people He had lead and were His friends and by His own family and people, He had traded for thirty pieces of silver, He grew up in the worst part of town, He was born in a stable with stinky animals, He was obedient even to the worst death possible...the death of criminals. He did it all to show us that He is not prideful, He is humble. I want to become like Christ in everything including my humility, for it shows that we are unworthy of this eternal life but we are very grateful of it daily.
An old country song goes like this: “Lord, it’s hard to be humble, when you’re perfect in every way.” Most of us would not put it so bluntly, but we all find it hard to be humble. The problem with us is that we forget who we are in the grand scheme of things. We must remember that we are but dust created in the image of God and made to display His worth. One particular passage of Scripture is thoroughly helpful in turning our eyes off our own navels and onto God’s glory: Philippians 2:5-11. By meditating on the gospel in this text, even the most prideful among us will be leveled low. To stay in a humbled position... 1. Feast your eyes on the matchless glory of Christ (vv. 5-6) “ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped …” Paul ascends to breathe the air of Mount Everest in this ancient hymn of the church. He speaks of Jesus’ divinity and equal status as God ...
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