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Christian walk is an ongoing pilgrimage with God, where grace takes you from where you are to where God wants you to be. So, wherever you may be in your life right now, God wants to lift you higher. It is a process, as God brings about a change in your thinking, a renewal of your mind to be in line with His word. His word declares You are no longer a slave. You are a child of God. [Galatians 4:7]
This truth has to renew your mind in order to appropriate all that God has prepared for you, to leave your slave mentality behind and be promoted.
How does He exalt you ?
So also Christ did not exalt Himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by Him, who said to him, ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you’. [Hebrews 5:5]
The Father Himself exalted His son Jesus Christ. And when you put your trust in Christ, God Almighty says to you I will be a Father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me. [2 Corinthians 6:18] So by the same token, you too can with boldness, believe and confess that God, the Father, will Himself exalt you. He who gave you the promise of promotion will Himself bring it to pass.
And until He lifts you up –
Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time. [1 Peter 5:6]
What does it mean to be humble ?
Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. [1 Peter 5:5]
Key words -1) submit, and 2) clothe your selves with humility:
Godly blessings come only in godly ways. They come by operating in God’s system that is God centred and driven by faith and love. The world’s system on the other hand, is self-centred and driven by lust and fear. The people of the world may mock at you and overtake you in their path to promotion. But when you are the child of God, and He lifts you up, He will also sustain you in your place of exaltation.
1. To submit –
It is to respect and yield to counsel, specifically the counsel of God. And humility of heart is what makes it possible. Humility is a freedom from pride and arrogance, where God reigns in your life, and He is your focus. ‘Hallowed be Thy Name’, the Lord prioritises very clearly. It is very unlike pride which is all about ‘I, me, myself’, to the exclusion of everything else.
Your role in cultivating humility –
‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways’, declares the Lord. [Isaiah 55:8] They are greater and higher than anything that you can come up with your own pride. Therefore filled with a sense of God consciousness, permeated by the presence of God, you need to move from being self centred to fix your eyes on God and His word. It is only then that God can speak into your circumstance to bring about a positive change. He has told you O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God ? [Micah 6:8]
How can you walk humbly with God ?
God’s word gives the answer – Can two walk together unless they are agreed ? [Amos 3:3]
The above verse puts forward the wonderful principle that you can walk with God only when you are in agreement with Him.
Walking in agreement –
The Saviour invites you ‘Come to me, take my yoke and learn from me, for I am meek and humble in heart’. [Matthew 11:28] In willingly being yoked together with Him, you can walk in agreement with Him, matching His pace to walk with the God who is meek and humble. Humility in simple terms is agreeing with God.
The basis of your agreement –
When you walk in agreement with God, you are acknowledging three irrefutable things concerning Him.
1. God knows all things –
There is no hiding from Him. In fact, He knows you better than you know yourself. Therefore, when He speaks to you concerning yourself, in humility agree with Him instead of coming up with excuses as Moses tried to and failed.
2. God has all things –
There is no need that God cannot satisfy. It is why the apostle Paul says, And my God will supply all your needs…
When you are in agreement with this truth, and believe and confess it, you will have the faith to ask of God with bold confidence. And He will supply all your needs according to His glorious riches in Jesus Christ. [Philippians 4:19]
3. God can do all things –
He is the mighty God for whom nothing is impossible, and when you are in agreement with this truth, He will accomplish the miraculous in your life. You may not know everything concerning your circumstance, but you know Him, and He knows it all. That is where you need to find your rest. He will reveal to you what you need to know, and as you act upon it and rest in the knowledge that God is always at work, He will bring to fulfillment what He has promised you.
Until then – 2) Clothe your selves with humility:
For God opposes the proud. But gives grace to the humble. [1 Peter 5:5]
God stands against pride, for the proud in heart cannot be in agreement with Him. Pride manifests itself in many ways.
a. An attitude of disrespect –
It was the pharaoh’s pride that made him ask in blatant arrogance, ‘Who is your God that I should let the people go ?’ Pride will make you disrespectful toward God and other people. But the Bible always encourages you to honour one another in love.
b. An attitude that despises –
Esau despised his birthright only to lose out on the blessing of God. He did not value and honour what God had spoken over his life. [Genesis 25:29-34] Despising what needs to be respected and honoured is a sign of underlying pride.
c. An attitude of presumption –
Pride can give you an ‘I know it all’ attitude, leading you to conclude in presumption that you know more than the All knowing, Almighty God. ‘If the Lord himself made windows in heaven can this be ?’ the captain asked, because he did not know God, and what He could do to meet people’s need. He was rebuked by the prophet, to suffer a painful consequence of his pride. [2 kings 7:2]
d. Boastful attitude –
Being boastful is the manifestation of a sin that is the pride of life. In a parable the Lord describes the boasting of a Pharisee as he stood praying in his heart to God. [Luke 18:9-14] It was not even spoken out aloud. But God sees your heart, the reality within you that you can mask and keep hidden from the rest of the world.
e. Unbelief –
And worst of all, pride takes you to a place of unbelief. God opposes the proud because pride takes your eyes off Him and His trustworthy word, in order to believe more in yourself and your opinion.
Zachariah who did not believe:
‘How can I know ?’ was his question of doubt when the Angel Gabriel came to him, giving the promise of a son being born to him, who would be a prophet of the Most High God. He believed more in himself, and in his opinion, that he and his wife were too old. God persisted with His promise, but these were the words of reproof.
‘And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time’. [Luke 1:20] Zachariah, the priest, knowing the scriptures could have remembered the birth of a son to Abraham in his old age which was a fulfillment of the promise of God.
In your life, for every problem that you face there is a promise in the word of God. And when it comes to you, it becomes the solution to it, if you agree and yield to it in humble submission. Your response needs to be, even as you receive it with child like faith.
God has said it, I believe it, And that settles it.
It is the mark of humility. It is inspired intelligence that is intelligent enough to acknowledge that God is All Intelligent.
Mary who believed:
She doubted not the promise of God that the Angel spoke unto her, but in wondrous awe had a question only about the modality, since she was a virgin. And she received the glorious assurance as he said to her, ‘for nothing will be impossible with God’. [Luke 1:37]
And even today, whatever may be the problem that you are going through, or however dire your need may be, it is the word of promise that comes to you from God With Him nothing shall be impossible.
The response of humility –
Let your response also be that of Mary’s on that blessed day, as she humbly submitted to God saying, ‘Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word’. [Luke 1:38]
David’s prayer of submission –
Humbly he received God’s promise to him, that He Himself would build David a house. And he acknowledged in gratitude, ‘For you O Lord have spoken, and with your blessing let the house of your servant be blessed forever’. [2 Samuel 7:29]
Who are the humble ?
They are those who agree with God completely, that with Him all things are possible. And God gives grace to the humble, exceedingly abundantly beyond all that they can ask or imagine. Man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Therefore whatever may have unsettled your heart and mind, let the entrance of God’s word settle it, as He writes it on the tablet of your heart. Let every seed of pride be removed from your heart, and let humility blossom. Let your heart be a fertile ground that brings forth the fruit of the Spirit in you, transforming you from glory to glory to reflect the image of Christ, Amen.
