Valuing Humility

One of my frequent oxymorons is, “I’m proud of how humble I am.” There likely was a time when that was true of me but that ship has sailed with more age and failures. How about you?
Jesus sets a higher standard than most of us would be comfortable with in the natural:

And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. ¹

Humility is a key part of the repentance that leads to Life in Jesus for without acknowledging our need, our own inadequacies to change ourselves, we have no hope for eternal life. The essence of Jesus’s statement is that only in being willing to ‘follow Him’ and laying down our lives in exchange for His life in us, do we have hope. Jesus said this in a more direct way in Luke 14:11, 

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” ²

As was often the case, Jesus gave a parable to fix this in the minds of those hearing His teachings.

“There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.’ ³

Do you see the sense of entitlement of the man who thought he was worthy of the ‘good things’ in this life and his disdain for the man who didn’t have as much as he thought was his right? Even in Hell, he thought the poor man should somehow serve him and that God ought to concede to his wishes. Arrogance is thinking we deserve more than we actually deserve, believing we are meriting more because of who we are apart from the LORD. Again, we mention Jesus’s observation on how many lords we can have in our lives:

No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.⁴

We are kidding ourselves if we think we can be our own master, to set our own course in life, to determine our own destination by our own will-power or esteem for ourselves. We cannot serve ourselves and the LORD—one of these two will lose out and if it is God, woe is us. We need to see, believe, live with only the LORD as God of our lives, to be fully His with nothing reserved for ourselves.
May it be so, LORD.