This post is a follow up to my post on New Year’s. In that post I talked about how mighty and powerful our God is. In this post I am discussing how we should live our lives for our Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Creator of the Universe.
I read Proverbs 22 often, it is a reminder of the moral virtues we are to uphold, the pitfalls in our way of those virtues and the consequences of weakness and failure. One particular verse in this chapter is a one sentence short description of how we as Christians should live our lives.
“By humility and the fear of the LORD are riches, and honour, and life.” (Proverbs 22:4)
Humility is something we all need help with. When I travelled to other countries in the military, we would have to attend training on how to act in the other countries we travelled to. This is because Americans have a reputation in the rest of the world as being arrogant and prideful.
We see on signs across our country “American Pride”. Pride is a part of our society. The Bible states in Proverbs 16:18, “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” We see further in a verse that many people would not like, Proverbs 8:13 “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.” How do we, who are raised to be prideful, humble ourselves to others and God?
We See in I Peter 5:5-7, “ Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. 6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: 7 Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”
We humble ourselves to God, with the knowledge and understanding that we are all sinners from birth, “ For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” (Romans 3:23). We also see this in the verse “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:” (Romans 5:12).
I could go on and on, but we need to come to the realization that every human being on this earth was created by God to be His children and servants. But because of Adam’s sin, we all now have the sin nature in us from birth. We need to realize there is only one way to overcome this sin nature, “ For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 6:23), we must believe in our Lord Jesus Christ. “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10).
We humble ourselves by realizing all of us are the same, born sinners worthy only of death and then eternal damnation. But there is hope in our Lord and Saviour, who saves us from our wicked ways. Then how do we stay humble? I have been in churches and as we are leaving, I look at my wife and she looks back as me in the same way, amazement. Not that it was a great service, but at how prideful and boastful the church was about themselves and not about God.
In our zeal for following God, many times we as individuals and churches fall prey to the pitfall of pride. I have been in churches that have their own church symbol and they boastfully talk about the symbol and all the church does and has to offer. What about what God does in our lives and has to offer us. It seems this becomes blurred sometimes when it shouldn’t, the pitfall of pride. “ But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:” (Matt. 6:3).
The best way to stay humble is to follow the second part of the main verse, Fear the Lord. There is a reason we have laws in societies. We have them so we can keep peace and order in our society. The reason people do not violate the law is the fear of punishment. There is no greater emotion that leads us into action or inaction than fear.
When it comes to God, the Almighty, we want to think of Him as a loving God, full of mercy. We want to be positive and encourage one another as Christians. The one thing that will cause you to be the greatest servant for God, and the greatest Christian is to humble yourself before God in fear of His power and majesty. If you violate his commandments and guidance, there will be punishment and sorrow that follow. God is a loving and compassionate God, who hates sin and disobedience.
Fear the Lord our God with all your heart, humble yourselves before God and your fellow man, and see the blessings that follow. In Christ.
The Sword of the Spirit 