Being Humble

It’s all about being humble.

I’m Hank Wilson and welcome to another episode of Living a True Christian Life. These messages are all part of the Christian Life Gospel Ministry and are designed to give us something to think about as we go about our daily lives. Our lives are filled with often contradictory messages, especially when it comes to how we should live our lives as Christians. There are numerous books, tv shows, radio programs etc that are, for the most part, delivered by people who have everyone’s best interest at heart. Sometimes though, it seems like some of what we are told, is really designed more to make us prideful rather than faithful. This thought occurred to me when I was listening to a country station and they played a humorous song by Mac Davis, It’s hard to be humble. In the song, is the line how it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect. Sometimes it seems like we live in a society with that’s actually the theme song for many of us.

 Today, I want to take a look at humility and pride. Essentially what does Jesus teach us about the subject. I will cover 3 questions that I personally have dealt with and prayed about over the years. First, just How important is it to avoid pride and seek humility? Should we avoid pride even in doing God’s work? And, if we stay humble will humility change our relationships with others?

Is it important that we  avoid pride and seek humility? If we were sitting at the feet of Jesus when he was teaching, we would have heard the answer to that question. We find it in Matthew 18:4 “So whoever will humble himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” Humble ourselves, is one of those concepts that seems to be completely un-American. Which you would think would be the opposite. After all we are told by politicians, preachers, and everyday citizens how the United States is a Christian country. Founded on the principals found in the Bible as taught by Jesus. The reality is that we are a very individualistic culture, we prize those who achieve, those who win. In fact, our very economy and much of our lifestyle is based on showing people all the things we have. Essentially we have switched what Jesus taught around, so that we want to be the greatest here on earth. We believe in the here and now, not the later.

You can see that on our television programs, especially in what is laughingly labeled reality TV. Most of those shows are built around the premise that it is best to be ’the winner’. We take great satisfaction in coming in 1st, when we compete we want to win. Watch any professional sport. When someone does something that excites the crowd or accomplishes something, they often beat their chest. We exhibit pride, and we all do it or we have done it in the past. The question becomes is that how God really wants us to act?

In James 4:4-6, it is written, “ You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says to no purpose, “He jealously desires the Spirit whom He has made to dwell in us”? But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, ‘God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Grace to the humble, when we actively walk in humility, when we proudly put God first, put others ahead of ourselves we show ourselves to be true believers. Not only are we displaying the correct way to live, we are also adding some protection for ourselves.

We read in Proverbs 18:12, “Before destruction the heart of a person is haughty, But humility goes before honor.” Most of us have heard the old saying, that pride goes before