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I pray sometimes that God will make me humble. But inevitably I soon find myself feeling proud for asking God such a noble thing. It’s pathetic really. Embarrassing. I believe in humility. I believe that humility is the king of all virtues. But the sheer goodness of humility makes it especially tricky to pursue and my deep depravity makes it impossible to master. Humility does not come naturally to me. It does not come naturally to any of us. But …
So much of what life brings is beyond my skills, beyond my experience, beyond my comfort zone. In many ways I could tell the story of my life through the times I have been forced into action, forced to confront my fears, forced to do things that make my natural disposition scream out in fear. Left on my own and living by my own preferences, my life would look very different than it does today. This is true in my …
Sometimes pride looks an awful lot like humility. There are times that our pride convinces us to put on a great show of what looks to all the world like humility so that we will be seen and acknowledged by others. We swell with pride when we hear, “He is humble.” It is a tricky thing, the human heart—prone to deceive both ourselves and others. The Apostle Paul was a genuinely humble man. He had a deep awareness of his …
Through the month of March, I am inviting you to 31 Days of Purity—thirty-one days of thinking about and praying for sexual purity. Each day features a short passage of Scripture, a reflection on that passage, and a brief prayer. Here is day thirteen: God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. (1 Peter 5:5). Humility does not come easily or naturally to sinful people like you and me. We think far too highly of ourselves, of our …
This is the tenth installment in a series on theological terms. See previous posts on the terms theology, Trinity, creation, man, Fall, common grace, sin, righteousness, and faith. Pride is the chief of all sins, as well as the chief cause of all sin. We learn from the prophet Ezekiel that this was the most essential problem with Sodom (16:49-50), and Paul teaches us that this is the sin that brought condemnation on the devil himself (1 Timothy 3:6). C. …
It occurred to me recently that I own several books dedicated to the topics of humility and pride (and, I’m sure, many more that deal with them in passing). I began to wonder how each of the authors define their terms and, with a little bit of research, here is what I came up with. You will see that all define humility but not all so clearly define pride. William Farley (Gospel-Powered Humility) Humility is the capacity to see myself …
Yesterday I had the rare opportunity to preach for just one Sunday which meant that instead of beginning a sermon series or continuing a series, I could preach any text that seemed fitting. As I thought and prayed, I was drawn to Luke 10 and the short story of Mary and Martha and the sibling rivalry between them. My purpose in going to that passage was not primarily to teach on the contrast between the life of busy service and …
Paul was a humble man. To read of his life and to read his letters is to encounter the testimony of a man who had been utterly captured by pride until the Lord set him free. Free from the captivity of pride he could now say, “Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” He spent his life among sinners, he labored to convince sinners of grace, he turned men over to Satan …
I’ve often wondered how I missed out on C.J. Mahaney’s books for so long. While I’ve now read several of them, I did not read the first until earlier this year. And now I’m hooked. I love Mahaney’s style of writing in which he blends sound, biblical teaching with humility and just the right amount of humor. I’ve found his books to be practical, yet not legislative, as if we needed him to dictate every aspect of the reader’s life. …