To Encourage You

1 Peter 5:5 “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’”

What word do you think would better describe you? Pride or humility?  If it is humility, are you proud about THAT?  And as you think about this, what’s the message you hear most in our world today?  Think of the phrases “Gay Pride,” “Pride Day,” or “Pride parades.” This word “pride” seems to have become synonymous with the LGBT movement.  So is this a good thing, for surely those who are promoting it think it is?  Is pride in anything a good thing, for that matter?  How do we know?

Well, to hear the world speak, pride is one of the highest virtues. We are to take pride in who we are. Isn’t that the message?  Aren’t we to be filled with self-esteem?  Aren’t we to realize that we are good people, so deserving of wonderful things?  Isn’t that the message of the media?  Isn’t that the focus of so much we hear?

But what does God say about all this?  Or doesn’t it matter that much?  Do WE have it right, or does the God Who made us? Don’t you think we should care about what He has told us?  Don’t you think that just HAS TO BE the best thing?

So, in the verse above from 1 Peter 5 we have the answer.  It tells us that God opposes the proud.  Does it make any sense to be opposed by Him?  This God Who has told us that He is Love, why would we want to fight against Him?  What benefit can there be to such an attitude? What possible good can come of it?  The answer should be self-evident.

But then note that the Lord “gives grace to the humble.” Grace is defined as unmerited favor. Do you hear that. It’s UNMERITED.  As such we all SHOULD BE HUMBLE. We all come into this world as sinners.  As David said, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5).  And as the apostle Paul said, this one who is regarded as the greatest apostle and one of the greatest men who ever lived: “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Timothy 1:15). 

You see, both of these men, when their eyes were opened to it, were astonished by two things: their own wickedness and God’s great grace.  It humbled them, one who was known as Israel’s greatest king, the other who had previously seen himself as one who had every “reason for confidence in the flesh . . . circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (Philippians 3:4-6). But then his eyes were opened to who he really was. And so he made the following confession: “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Philippians 3:7-9).

You see, to live in pride is to live in blindness to the truth.  We are using a faulty measuring stick. We look at ourselves and compare ourselves with those around us and puff ourselves up because we are better than THEM!  However, again looking to God’s Word, we are told that that “when (we) measure (our)selves by one another and compare (our)selves with one another, (we) are without understanding” (2 Corinthians 10:12).

So how should we see ourselves? What’s the standard against which we should measure our lives?  Well, the Bible would tell us it is the One Who alone IS Life; the spotless Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.  And what do we see when we look at Him?  We see One Who “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8).

So, if the greatest being in the universe, the only One Who can claim in His own nature to be the essence of good, humbled HIMSELF, how can we do anything less?  It’s the antidote against pride, to look at this One. It’s the only way to have a proper perspective about anything.  But then as we do this, we will be blessed, for it is the humble and the humble alone Who receive grace.