The reward for humility and fear of the LORD is riches and honor and life. Proverbs 22:4 ESV
Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. James 4:10 ESV
If you want to be in a right relationship with the Lord, you have to humble yourself before Him. You have to submit to Him and surrender your life to Him. We were put here to be in fellowship with the Lord. In order to be in fellowship with the Lord, we worship Him, and we serve Him. We say and do the things that bring Him glory, honor and praise.
Often times however, we get saved and continue to put ourselves first. We put our needs above God. Which is ironic when you think about it because we know if we put God first, He will take care of all our needs (Matthew 6:33). We consider ourselves more important than others which is the opposite of what we are told to do in Philippians 2:3.
If you’ve read the Old Testament, you have seen a pattern with the Israelites. They were God’s chosen people. They would see Him perform miracles for them to save them like parting the Red Sea and allowing them to walk through on dry land to save them from Pharaoh’s army, but still they rebelled. They were prideful and didn’t humble themselves before Him. They wanted to do things their way and they would get into trouble. God would punish them. They would cry out to God. God would have mercy on them. They would humble themselves and do well for a while, but then they would get into pride and the whole thing would repeat over and over again for hundreds of years.
You’d think they’d learn, right? Have you learned? Have you come to understand that our relationship with God is all about being humble. We are to worship and serve Him. We are to humble ourselves before Him. If we fail to do so, He will humble us, and we don’t want that. In Luke 14:11, Jesus said, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
My friend if you are walking around in pride, you need to make some changes. God hates pride. We are told in Proverbs 29:23, “One’s pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor.”
Maybe you’ve been prideful for so long you aren’t sure how to humble yourself. Well, I promise you God will be glad to help you with that if you will only ask. The simplest way to do this is found in John 3:30 which says, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
What we think and what we want should not be as important to us as what God wants from us. He wants us to whole-heartedly surrender to Him. We cannot do this and be prideful. We must totally humble ourselves before Him. We must submit to Him.
There was a time in my life when I focused on me. I exalted myself and my needs above Him. He humbled me. There was a lot of emotional pain and heartache to get there, but I came to realize that I could just give it all over to Him.
What a relief. Now I am happy to let Him be in control. Of course, He was all along, I just didn’t acknowledge it. I no longer strive to see what I can do to fix something I give it over to Him. I trust in Him. I look to Him for guidance.
When we are prideful, we spend a lot of time and energy trying to solve problems that we should be turning over to Him.
Pride leads to destruction. Humble yourself before Him. I promise, you won’t regret it. With our humility comes a peace and joy that words can’t explain. Experience it for yourself and you too will see it’s all about humility. This is where a good, solid relationship with Jesus has to start.
Have a great day!