A Little More on Humility

A person cannot arrive at humility by striving to be humble. Possibly some of the people that strive for humility the most are the Tibetan Buddhists, who prostrate themselves on the ground thousands of times for payment of one sin, and spend lifetimes in the selfless pursuit of a higher reincarnation. Yet for all their great effort, it will not succeed. True humility only happens by drawing near to the Lord Jesus, for humility is the appropriate human response to Truth.


Moses was the most humble person of his day. The word that we are looking at can be described, “meek, lowly, or poor.” He’s the one of whom God said, “With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD shall he behold.” He’s the one who was allowed to be put in the cleft of a rock while the Lord God passed by so he could get a glimpse of His form. This is the question: did he get to draw nearer to God because he was humble, or did drawing nearer to God cause him to become humble? The answer is yes! This is where we discover Truth, and where we are discovered by Truth. Jesus Christ is the fixed point. He is the Truth that will not be moved. When anything is drawing near to Him, He is drawing it. When you call out to Him, He is already calling out to you. Conversely, when you deny Him, He has already denied you.


“He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”


To the degree that you are in agreement with the Light, you are humble. Moses was so humble that God used him as His agent to bring the Holy Scriptures into being. Whether he actually wrote them, or was given the insight to compile them from pre-existing documentation or oral tradition doesn’t matter. God chose to use Moses to bring together the precepts, the teachings, the Torah. If sin means “missing the mark,” the Torah means “hitting the mark.”


So, how do you have humility? It's by knowing what's true about your right place under God. How do you know that? It's by knowing the truth about Christ Jesus’ authority over you. (“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.”) How? “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.”


Put away your TV shows, football idols, music fanship, and any other hobbies that distract you from full on attention to the Lord your God.