HUMILITY
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Giving God, and not ourselves, the credit for who we are and what we do.
Did you know that there are some things that God hates? Proverbs 6:16-19 lists seven if them and the very first one is PRIDE. Pride is taking credit for what we do or who we are, and it ignores God completely. The truth is that without God we would be nothing and could do nothing. He gives us life and the energy and intelligence to do what we do. When we are proud, we take credit for what God has done. God wants us to be humble, giving Him credit. James 4:6 says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” God fights against those who are proud, but He gives His favor to those who are humble.
PRIDE is a sin. As a matter of fact, pride is the first sin that we know of. Up in heaven everything was perfect until one day Lucifer, one of God’s angels decided that he wanted to be God. Five times in Isaiah 14 we read Lucifer’s words, “I WILL”. He no longer wanted to follow God, but he wanted to take God’s place and be worshipped and adored.
God kicked Lucifer out of heaven along with 1/3 of the angels who chose to follow. From that time on he has tried very hard to ruin all that God has made. We now call Lucifer, “Satan” or “The Devil”. Satan knows how much God hates pride, so he tries to get us to think that we do not need God and that we have the right to do what we want. Satan has caused many people to do foolish and sinful things, things that hurt others and that people are sorry for later. Pride caused Satan to fall and many others have followed.
In the Bible we read about a man that got great strength from God. His name was Samson. Samson was supposed to use the strength God gave him to help free God’s people, the Jews, from their enemies.
Samson did this for a while. He once killed one thousand men from the Philistine army using only the jawbone of a donkey. Over time, however, Samson began to think that he didn’t need God to have great strength, he was strong on his own.
A beautiful woman named Delilah was offered a large sum of money if she could find out what made Samson so strong. She spoke sweetly to him telling him that she loved him, and Samson believed her. She asked him what the secret of his great strength was. Samson was a NAZARITE, a person who had made a promise to serve God and be faithful to Him. Samson had long hair as an outward symbol of this inner commitment.
After a while Delilah’s charms got through to Samson. He told her that if she cut off his hair, he would be weak as any other man. Inwardly Samson was proud, and he thought that his promise to God didn’t matter. He would be strong no matter what, but he was wrong. While Samson slept on her lap, Delilah had a barber cut off all of Samson’s hair. When he woke up, he was very weak. The Bible sadly tells us that God was no longer with Samson to give him strength. The soldiers put out Samson’s eyes and made him work grinding grain. Eventually he died in captivity. Pride not only cost Samson God’s blessing, but it cost him his life.
Here are some things the Bible says about Pride:
- Psalm 138:6 - God
takes note of and is close to the humble, but He is far from the proud.
- Proverbs 11:2 -
Pride brings shame, but wisdom comes to the humble.
- Proverbs 12:9 –
The proud person will be despised (no one will like them).
- Proverbs 13:10 – Pride causes fighting or
hurt feelings.
- Proverbs 16:5 – Everyone
who is proud is disgusting to the Lord.
- Proverbs 16:18 – Pride goes before
destruction and a proud spirit before a fall.
- Proverbs 21:4 –
Pride is a sin.
- Proverbs 27:2 - Don’t praise yourself, let others do it.
The opposite of pride is HUMILITY. Our greatest example of humility is Jesus. Jesus is God and He ruled in Heaven. Philippians chapter 2 tells us that even though He was God He humbled Himself and took on the form of a SERVANT. He left heaven, was born in a lowly stable to very poor parents. He grew up and at age 30 began to teach the people of Israel the way to have eternal life in heaven. He didn’t come here to earth so that people would bow before Him, but He came to be a servant.
When He was 33 years old Jesus allowed the Jewish leaders, who were jealous of Him, to arrest Him. He was falsely accused, cruelly beaten and He was nailed to a cross. Since He was God, He could have stopped this at any point, but He didn’t because he loves us. He willingly died on that Cross to pay the penalty for our sins.
Jesus was buried, but He rose again on the third day. He is now in heaven preparing a place for all those who accept His free gift of Salvation. He humbled Himself and left glory so that we might live with Him in Glory. Pride will make you think that you are good enough to get to heaven on your own, but you could never be good enough. Will you humbly ask Jesus to save you today?
Curriculum by: Mark Redka (CBM)