Tuesday April 28, 2020

Your Daily Dose of Inspiration:

There is a key quality which set David apart from Saul, that is humility. David remained humble before the Lord and always sought His will. When Saul was confronted with sin, Saul made excuses and was only concerned about the way he looked in front of his people. When David was confronted with his sin, he fell on his face in repentance. There was great humility in the heart of David, and God exalts the humble. That is the key to being exalted by God, humility. God delights in exalting the humble. James 4:10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you. That is consistent with what He did all throughout the Bible. He did not reach out to Moses when he was living in the palace of Pharaoh, but when he was a shepherd in the wilderness. He did not call Gideon when he was strong and courageous, but when he was cowering and hiding. He did not call the Pharisees and Sadducees or any powerful government leader to follow His son, but the fishermen, the tax collector, the despised. He did not accept Paul when he was in power but humbled him first by blinding him. The exaltation of God begins with humility. 1Corinthians 1:26-31 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. (27) But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; (28) God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, (29) so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (30) And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, (31) so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

So, if that is where we need to start, then what is humility? The difficulty here is that there is a fair amount of confusion about what it means to be humble. Some have this idea that one who is humble is very shy and quiet. Some people assume that you must think poorly of yourself and never accept a compliment. Some think it means that you should never own anything very nice. People may assume the humble person to be weak or a push-over. But these things are not what humility is truly about. The shy person may still be very proud, those who deny a compliment may still think only of themselves, there may be as much pride in poverty as there can be in wealth; it takes great strength to remain humble. Biblical humility is concerned with two things, submission to God, and everyone except yourself.

-Jared Freeman, “Humility & Exaltation”