As I went through last week, which by the way was not a good week, I struggled with my Sunday School lesson, I just couldnt get it together. Praying, wondering, waiting trying to figure out what it was that God wanted me to share. Day after day every place I turned I kept hearing, humble, humble, humble. I had started really looking into being humble, what does it really mean. Being humble, is something I struggle with being that type A (if thats what you want to call it) personality. As a child and even as I got older people I tend to be the bossy child. As I matured to find out that God had instilled that into me that it was part of my unique gifting, but finding out how to control that...thats another thing.
Being humble is the opposite of being proud. Unfortunatly, in society and in our culture we are geared toward self gratification, self glory, I deserve more, be all you can be attitude. So, where did this come from? Well, back in times the Roman Empire it was considered a virtue to be prideful and humility was seen as weakness. Strange how things in that since havent changed, but the Roman Empire fell.
One of the transliterations of the word 'humility' is tapeinorphrosune (tap-i-nof-ros-oo-nay) which actually derived from 2 words Tapeinos & Phren
Tapeinos, adjective, meaning low lying properly low, in spiritual sense 'God reliant rather than self relevant'
Phren, noun, meaning- Midriff; heart ; mind
midriff .. thats right.. the parts around your heart. Phren is actually the root of the English word, Diaphragm,
the meaning of the word including mind, is what a person really has in mind, your mindest, that insight that regulates your outward behavior.
Your diagphram is in you to regulate you, it controls your breathing.
Think of it like this, Humble, self governed, self controlled. Humility, regulating of behavior by being God reliant rather than self relevant.
Regulating, governing, controlling our hearts our minds our intellect to be lowly, being able to accept being under authority. God.
God gifted us all so much differently, we all have our own knowledge in the certain areas but we have to realize that there is much that we dont know. Pride is so hard to see in ourselves, we have to make a concious effort in making sure that we are not crossing that line of being prideful.
As a Christian, its an oxymoron for a Christian to be prideful and not humble. The grace that GOd has freely bestowed on us, we recieved freely. It was unmerited, undeserved, we had to give him nothing to recieve it. The word of God tells us that pride is a sin (Prov 21:4), its an abomination to God (Prov 16:5), and that the Lord preserves the faithful and repays the proud doer (Psalm 31:23)
Luke 18:9-14, is a perfect example of Humility vs Pride. The Pharisee is praying out thankful for not being like others, telling all that he has done.. bragging. Yet the tax collecter stands back, quiet.. humble.
Humility. a lack of false pride, modest opinion, or estimate of ones own importance or rank.
Sometimes, that one who is seeking to be esteemed dont do it intentially, they may do it thinking that they are going to recieve eternal reward for it, thinking thats how you get it. The Lord rejects it,my friend, and thats not how we reach the place of blessing and honor in the kingdom. Our service for Him, is to be selfless service. Self denying, self dedicated.. Serving God humbly, not self seeking.
We have to seek Gods grace daily, look for ways that He desires us to be, today my friend I hope that this is not a struggle for you, and I hope that if it is, this is a step to revealing that so you can work toward being that humble one God wants you to be.
