In my last post I said that God desires His people to pursue Him with humility. To be a people who hold His Word in high honor.
I think sometimes we get so focused on who we are in Christ that we forget about who we were without Him. Don’t get me wrong. It’s imperative that we understand our “in Christ realities.” But who I am in Christ has nothing to do with my accomplishments and everything to do with what the Lord has done.
God wants to be pursued humbly. The problem is that many believers don’t understand the Scriptural concept of humility. We don’t like the sound of that word.
At one point children were running around the feet of Jesus. He reached down and picked one up.
And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 18:3-4
We need to learn from the humility of children. When they’re with an adult who shows them love and attention, children are transformed. That adult becomes their world.
They want to be like that adult. They want to act and talk like them. Children just want to hang around that kind of adult. They look up to them and have the attitude that “he or she is it!”
That’s what true humility is all about. It has nothing to do with considering yourself as dirt. Being humble never causes you to put yourself down. It’s a whole different side of the coin.
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Philippians 2:3-4
Humility never puts itself down, but rather sees others as better. That makes a world of difference. Humility looks beyond its own interests.
When you’re truly walking in humility, you are no longer the center of your own world. Now the needs and desires of other people become important to you. You want to find a way to uplift others.
In our walk with God, that translates to seeing God’s desires for us as greater than our own wants. I want to please Him first, before I please myself. I seek the Lord for who He is rather than what I can get from Him.
Instead of looking to Christ and saying, “I want this from You.” we need to be saying, “Lord, I want to be like you.” “Lord, I just want to hang around in Your presence. I want to pick up Your habits and attitudes.”
That’s what true humility is all about. It has nothing to do with putting myself down or trying to get others to believe that I’m a nobody.
A humble pursuit of God means that I take my eyes off myself and focus on Him.
Question: What needs to change in order to pursue God in humility?
© Nick Zaccardi 2016
The Spirit and the Word 