Humility!

Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you. James 4:10

I recently read Humility: The Beauty of Holiness, a book by Andrew Murray. The book’s thesis is that     to live a life for Christ, one must be humble. What does a humble Christian life look like? All we need   to do is look to Christ.

Murry writes, “In Jesus we shall see how both as the Son of God in heaven, and as man upon earth, He took the place of entire subordination, and gave God the honor and the glory which is due to Him.” Scripture plainly teaches the humility of    Christ.

Have this way of thinking in yourselves   which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although existing in the form of God, did    not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking      the form of a slave, by being made in the   likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Phil 2:5-8

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back     to God, 4 got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He tied it around Himself. Then He poured water into the wash basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel which He had tied around Himself. John 13:3-5

If the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords can humble Himself before mere men, how much more should      our lives reflect humility as we live for Christ? To show humility, we need to understand our role. We need to see ourselves as dead to sin and the world and alive to Christ Jesus. We were slaves to sin, and now we are slaves to righteousness. Since no person is more significant than their master (in our case, Jesus), we must humble ourselves before Him, and show that humility in our daily lives.

Like you, I fight the battle of pride. Too often in my ministry, I have stolen God’s glory because of the sin      of pride. We must continue to fight it to make sure God gets the glory in our humility .

Your shepherd,

Pastor Mark

 

p.s. I highly recommend the book Humility: The Beauty of Holiness, by Andrew Murray