HUMILITY ARE YOU LIVING IT?

Measuring One's Humility

The Essential Christian Character

Monday, January 09, 2012

Humility is the most essential character quality of the Christian. Humility allows one to respond properly to conviction of sin, as one is being led to Christ. Living by faith is contrary to living with a prideful attitude. In describing the righteousness of faith, Paul quotes Habbakuk 2:4, but the whole verse indicates that righteous living is contrary to prideful behavior.

Rom 1:17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."

"See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright-- but the righteous will live by his faith--" Hab 2:4

Isaiah also reveals the necessity of humility for one to be esteemed in God's eyes.

"This is the one I esteem:

he who is humble and

contrite in spirit

trembles at my word

And as walking as Christ walked we should consider his practice of humility:

"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!" Php 2:5-8

Sources of Humilation

"To keep me from becoming conceited

because of these surpassingly great revelations,
there was given me a thorn in my flesh,
a messenger of Satan, to torment me."
2 Corinthians 12:7

In God's program to develop humility in us He often subjects us to humiliating circumstances or otherwise provides sources of humilation in our life. Thus our goal should not necessarily be to remove or avoid the thorns of life. For these are necessary to some extent to the health of our spiritual well-being in helping us develop and maintain humility, which is most essential to Christian character. What are your sources of humiliation? Your spouse? Your children? Your social or financial or marital status? Your physical flaws? God has many ways to bring humiliation into our lives. What are we afraid of? Perhaps those very things are the things God will bring into our lives in order to humble us. But perhaps we shouldn't necessarily consider that a bad thing. For it is healthy to have sources of humiliation.

But if you lack sources of humiliation then you've got a problem. A nervous system reacts with pain if something is wrong physically. A conscience reacts with a feeling of guilt if sin is committed. A humble character similarly is contrite and reacts with lowliness and self-debasing when pride springs up. But the proud person may not recognize pride in themselves. And those who are not subject to humilation tend to develop pride. Thus for example Jesus and James speak of the pride of the wealthy. For wealth can be a source of pride as poverty a source of humiliation. Indeed those religious leaders who had Christ crucified had too many sources of pride and too few sources of humiliation. And a source of humilation for one person may be a source of pride for another. What are your sources of pride? Your family? Your social or financial status? Your strength or beauty? Your position of authority? There can be many sources of pride as there are sources of humiliation.

Part of Jesus' ministry, and indeed a part of Christian ministry, is to humiliate the proud. Why did they seek to kill him? What was the real reason? It was because he humiliated them. Yet as the great physician he was simply giving them the medicine of humiliation which they were in need of if they were ever to be saved.

Measures of Humility

Now without going into how one develops humility, let's consider how one might measure the level of one's humility. These are some ideas:

Do you respond to rebuke by getting angry or by giving careful consideration to the rebuke?

If someone disagrees with your opinion, do you demonize and slander the person, or do you do you try to understand their point of view?

Do you read the Bible looking to obey it, with an application oriented mindset, or do you try to read into your own ideas and your own chosen lifestyle? Do you find that your study is dominated by trying to get around what it says?

Do you submit to legitimate human authority figures as the Bible directs?

If you are a wife, do you accept and practice your God-given role of being subordinate to your husband?

If you are a women do you accept and practice the politically incorrect gender specific commands in the New Testament?

For those who speak and teach spiritual things, is your speech and reasoning dominated by your own words and ideas, or those of the Bible?

When you hear the phrase "Word of God" do your own words and ideas come to mind or does the Bible come to mind?

Are you generally afraid of what people think of you? (This indicates pride!)

This is generally a misconception. It is not characteristic of Biblical humility for one to place a high value on other people's opinion of them. The humble are more concerned about doing what is right than doing things to make themselves more popular. Thus "the righteous are as bold as a lion." Prov 28:1 Confidence in God is characteristic of Biblical humility. "So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded."Heb 10:35

When you think of leading someone to Christ, do you tend to replace the "gospel" with your own personal testimony?

Do you talk more about Christ of the Bible or more about yourself and your own personal experience of Christ?

Do you tend to pray more for yourself or more for others?

Are you involved in regularly meeting the practical needs of others?

Concerning you secular career and ministry objective, are you trying to make something of yourself, or are you trying to make nothing of yourself? (Joh 3:30 "He must become greater; I must become less.") Is your objective to serve, or simply to make a name for yourself?

The Christian Walk

I. Conviction of Sin

"I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate,

but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber."

John 10:1

There are many who claim to be Christian, but it seems have only become so by climbing through the window. For to accept the gift of eternal life without dealing with the issue of sin is to enter God's house as a thief. Like Israel leaving Egypt, they joyfully accept his promise, but when it comes to obeying His commandments, they preferred to make God into an idol that they could control. "Christians" often make God in their own image whenever the God of the Bible conflicts with their chosen lifestyle. Though they agree with some parts of the Bible, they reject or ignore other parts. Obedience and submission never really become an issue until our own desires conflict with the desires of the one we claim to be submitting ourselves to.

A man once came to Jesus asking "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Luke 18:18

By such a casual use of the word "good", Jesus recognized his problem. This man thought that "being good" was an easy thing and that he could obtain eternal life based on his performance. So Jesus first dealt with the issue of sin.

"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good-- except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.'"

But the man answered:

"All these I have kept since I was a boy," he said.

Jesus was using the law to help convict this man of sin, for that is the purpose of the law. "Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin." Rom 3:20. Here was a man who lacked the conviction of sin.

Real Christians call sin for what it is and admit that they are sinners

, for it is written:

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives."

　

II. Practicing Righteousness

A. With Respect to Sin

"No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God."

1John 3:9

There is an inevitable effect of a person being born of the Spirit of God. The word "cannot" here is the greek word "dunamai" where we get the word "dynamite" and indicates that a real Christian simply does not have the ability to sin in the manner spoken of here. Try as he might, the Christian does not have the ability to live a lifestyle of sin.

I say "lifestyle" because what is missing in the translation is the significance of the present tense of "sin". In greek, the present imparts a much more continuous sense than in the English, as they have a separate tense (the aorist) which is used if the sense of continuity is not stressed.

This is not to say that Chistians do not sin at particular points in time, for that would contradict the point of 1John 1:8,10 mentioned above as well as the common experience of all Christians. For I have never met a Christian who never sins and those who claim such often have a conscience which is so corrupted by sin, that their sin is usually quite obvious even to the non-christian.

Though a Christian falls into sin at particular points in time, when it comes to his overall lifestyle, he simply cannot sin. Those who have sin as a characteristic of their lifestyle or profession will not go to heaven.

"But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars

-- their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."

"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."

Does that mean that if a Christian lies at a particular point, or is greedy one day, or perhaps gets drunk one time, or slanders someone at some point, that he will not inherit the kingdom of God? No! But rather if these are characteristic of the person's life, such a person will go to hell regardless what he calls himself.

"If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him"

Practicing righteousness is not only calling sin for what it is, but behaving appropriately.

　

B. The Mindset of a Christian

"Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires."

Rom 8:5

Does the Christian have the ability to "live according to the sinful nature"? No! Because just a few verses later it says:

"You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ."

"Controlled by" is more literally translated "in" ("en" in the greek). Notice that being in the Spirit is not a function of your will or desires, but simply a function of whether you have the Spirit of God in you. And you are not a Christian if you don't have the Spirit. This is not something that comes and goes. A real Christian is continually in the Spirit. But what does that mean?

One difference between an amateur and a professional is how they define themselves. An amateur may go outside at night an look at somes stars. He doesn't then call himself an astronomer! A professional has made a lifestyle decision to define himself a certain way. So the Christian makes a conscious decision to conform his life according the Spirit. (Though no doubt he'll fall short of a perfect standard). The non-Christian, not having the Spirit, does not do this. For the true Christian, God is the boss. For the nominal-Christian and non-christian, someone else is the boss. Though amateur Christians and non-christians may try to imitate him at times, the true Christian is one who makes it his profession to submit to the Spirit of God and the Word of God (regardless of whether he gets payed for it).

The mindset of the Christian is when it comes to lifestyle decisions - (how he defines himself, what he considers his meaning and purpose and life, how determines his moral standards) - he submits himself to the Spirit of God.

　

C. Christian Love

"This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother."

1John 3:10

This verse occurs right after the one that says the Christians don't have the ability to live a lifestyle of sin. Practing righteousness has two aspects. Abstaining from sin is one application. There are things that Christians should not do, and then there are things that Christians should do.

One of the primary identifying marks of a Christian is whether they love other Christians.

"By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

"We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death."

This is so characteristic of the true Christian, that according to Jesus in Matt 25, God will allow only those who have this characteristic to enter into heaven.

　

III. Endurance

"All men will hate you because of me,

but he who stands firm to the end will be saved." Matt 10:22

The true Christian never falls away. For if a Christian falls away, it is only an indication that he never was a real Christian.

"They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us."

The reason being quite simply that being born of the Spirit of God, he becomes a new creation (2Cor 5:17) and it is innate with him to always return to the Shephard of his soul as a sheep naturally returns to his.