Humility is a virtue that God holds in high esteem and will reward. Jesus taught that “the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Matthew 20:16). As Christians, we are called to imitate our Lord and Savior.
The apostle Paul advises, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:4-8).
Jesus declared in Matthew 11:28-29, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Christ is the template from which His followers are to pattern themselves after.
And who better to know the heart of God than His “one and only Son, who is Himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father,” (John 1:18).
God Opposes The Proud
The Bible contains many passages that convey God’s attitude regarding humility in His people and His disdain of pride. Psalm 149:4 says, “For the Lord takes delight in His people; He crowns the humble with salvation.” James 4:6 tells us, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Luke 14:11 teaches, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” 1 Peter 5:6 reads, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.” And in James 4:10 we are told, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.”
Proverbs 29:23 teaches, “A man’s pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor.” Micah 6:8 says of God, “He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
In Ephesians 4:2 we read, “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” And in Proverbs 11:2, we find, “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.”
King Solomon knew that humility was crucial to following the Lord as the King of Israel. God spoke to him saying, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14).
Is it any wonder that our civilization seems disorientated amidst growing self indulgence and self gratification by a generation that prioritizes pride? Romans 1:18-32 describes the symptoms of a fallen society that is storing up God’s wrath against it – symptoms that are prevalent in today’s culture.
Believers must heed King Solomon’s wisdom as recorded in Proverbs 18:12. “Before his downfall a man’s heart is proud, but humility comes before honor.”
Sodom And Gomorrah
The Bible tells us that the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah was so great and their sin was so grievous that God destroyed both cities by raining down burning sulfur on them (Genesis 18:20; Genesis 19:24).
While most commentaries focus on the debauchery and homosexuality of Sodom and Gomorrah, it was the arrogance and pride of the city’s men that stands in glaring defiance of all things good. The sense of entitlement they exhibited; the audacity to think they somehow, conceivably had the right to abuse Lot’s visitors is not only disturbing and grotesque, it is exemplified by sexual predators today.
Sodom and Gomorrah didn’t become evil overnight, and in the same way, our society today has gradually devolved to possess the very same extreme and perverse principles. Over time, cultural taboos have become normalized and are now part of mainstream values. In the words of Joni Eareckson Tada, “Gradually, the unthinkable becomes tolerable, then acceptable, the legal, then praised.”
Continued sin sears our consciences and hardens our hearts, and we deceive ourselves into believing that our depravity is not depravity at all. but an expression of our virtue. We succumb to the deception of relativism and are drawn in by false teachers that advocate our disrespect for God in an attempt to justify our desire to willfully sin (2 Timothy 3:1-5; 4:2).
Christians are to be set apart from the world and sanctified through Christ. In 1 John 2:15-16, the disciple writes, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world.”
James elaborates bluntly in James 4:4, “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” Worldly values and worldly passions are blind to the holiness of God and stem from the god of this age, who is Satan (2 Corinthians 4:4).
A prideful heart leads to prideful actions and consequently sin, as depicted by Solomon in Proverbs 21:4, “Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin! Vanity leads to the perversion of mankind’s judgement and society’s self glorification stands in direct opposition to God.
As the world celebrates a month of pride, true believers must respectfully abstain. In humility we must draw near to God and distance ourselves from this perverse generation. A generation that seeks to change the gospel to accept sin along with sinners. A culture that epitomizes pride and ridicules the humble.
Christians bear the name of Christ, therefore, let us imitate Him. The Psalmist wrote: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” And Philippians 2:3 teaches, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others before yourselves.”
Kneel before Christ in the spirit of humility and in sincere faith. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 27-29, “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him.”
