Humility

I wanted to write about the importance of humility in our walk with the Lord. I still feel I have a long way to go so I know I will have even a deeper understanding of humility as I mature and grow and learn through trials and experiences. But for me I was always seen as a humble person as early as I can remember. After I turned 19 I lost my dad and moved from all my friends in Mo. to Az. He was a great example of this in my life he was a very humble person. I didn't know the Lord so the further I got away from this example the worse it got for me. I learned how to make money and was learning some teaching from the world from age 19 to 30 that was not good. There are no words to explain how awesome of a teacher the Lord is but the world and Satan is a very bad messed up deceiving teacher. So the Lord has been my teacher for the last 8 years and it is a process. Like my brother said a guy told him one day, your life is sort a like a twisted up garden hose you have spent your whole life messing up so humble yourself to your master and give him time to untwist you and straighten you out. Ha I thought that was great and true, it takes time and is a process. But for me I'm thankful for that time 19 to 30  for a lot of reasons but the main reason is I finally came to the end of my self broken and humbled myself before the Lord and asked him for help. Jeremiah 29:13 ‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. So for me the beginning of understanding life and my purpose and why I'm here was finding my true Father, the Lord and having him teach me. It starts by getting yourself out of the way and knowing there is a powerful mighty God who made all this and is in charge and you need him.  It is a completely different understanding of things and way of life then what you learn from the world. When you accept Jesus you are reborn spiritually and you have God and his ways and character and heart inside of you teaching you and changing you. You have the Holy Spirit in you and the fruits of the Spirit Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. I want to use 4 scriptures in God's word to show how important humility is and examples of 2 people in the bible. The opposite of humility is pride, Satan became prideful and God hates pride, I'm pretty sure it gets in the way of our relationship with God. James 4:5 ‘But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, "GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE." Humility to me is you know you need God and are dependent on him and you also know you need others in the church or body of Christ. God gives his strength and grace to the humble. The world and Satan will teach you and your flesh will tell you this is a weakness. When you are humble and meek and God's strength and love is in you it is no comparison to that of the world or your own, that I can tell you with all my heart I have experienced both. Ephesians 4:2-3 ‘With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.' I love this chapter and read it a lot it talks about being humble and patient with each other and being unified with in the Spirit of God. Loving, helping, equipping, teaching each other so the church will be healthy and full of love and everyone plays a part. But the chapter starts with being humble, gentle, patient, and forgiving.  Matthew 11:28-30 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” We are all going to go through very hard things in life and our walk with the Lord. Jesus says in this scripture to come to him with these burdens and we can find rest, his yoke is easy and he will teach us. It says he is humble and gentle. We know that Jesus was humble and was dependent on God for everything he needed and did but he wasn't weak by any means. If your a man and you think men in the church are weak or a godly man is weak come and accept Jesus and walk with the Lord. You will soon discover that being a Godly man and leading your family and becoming like Jesus takes a real man and is hard. You will have a different understanding of what being a man is and a new understanding of what humility is. Isaiah 66:1-2 ‘This is what the LORD says: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be? Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?" declares the LORD. "This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.' This is a very humbling scripture for me. He is reminding us who he is, the maker, creator and life giver of everything and everyone. It reminds me that we serve, help, and love each other because of our love from God. But to humble myself and desire to know God and have relationship with him is the most important thing we do in our day everyday. Like God says in Exodus 34:14 I'm a jealous God about my relationship with you. In other words I'm the one who builds everything, not you, I want to know you and love you and have a relationship with you. There is nothing we will ever do or have that will compare to our relationship with the Lord. The 2 men I want to look at in the Word is Moses and the apostle Paul. They both had this amazing relationship with the Lord and I think humility played a big part. Numbers 12:3 & 6-8 (Now Moses was very humble--more humble than any other person on earth.) And the Lord said to them, “Now listen to what I say: “If there were prophets among you, I, the Lord, would reveal myself in visions. I would speak to them in dreams.  But not with my servant Moses.  Of all my house, he is the one I trust. I speak to him face to face, clearly, and not in riddles! He sees the Lord as he is.' It says that Moses was more humble than anyone and God spoke to him face to face.’ Moses had a very close relationship with the Lord. Remember back in Exodus 33:12-23 Moses is talking to the Lord about the responsibility given to him to lead over a million of God's people to the promise land and Moses is asking God not to send him if he is not going with them because they would die. Moses was in a very humbling place where he was very dependent on the Lord. The in verses 18-23 Moses asked to see his glorious presence and God didn't let him look at his face, no one has ever seen God but he let Moses see him from behind. Paul is another great example of humility, the story of his conversion, when he started believing in Christ is in Acts chapter 9. After his conversion he went to Arabia for a length of time to spend with the Lord, some say 3 years. Galatians 1:15-17 ‘But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. ‘Then it pleased him to reveal his Son to me, so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles. When this happened, I did not rush out to consult with any human being. Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to consult with those who were apostles before I was. Instead, I went away into Arabia, and later I returned to the city of Damascus.' Then in 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 it says that Paul was caught up to the 3rd heaven by the Lord and given visions and revelations and seen paradise things he couldn't put into words. Then in verses 7-10 ‘even though I have received such wonderful revelations from God. 'So to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.' Paul's story and past and how God used him and the relationship he had with the Lord is amazing. It also showed how much Paul was given from the Lord and Paul also was put in place of great humility and a place where he was very dependent on the Lord. This really reminds me how important humility is in our relationship with the Lord and am I going to open my heart and give God full access to my life and allow him to work in me and take to a place where I am humble and very dependent on him. Reading, writing, and learning about these things is important but doing is the hard part. Pride will destroy a relationship with the Lord and cause division in the church, the body of Christ. Humility will restore or bring one closer in a relationship with the Lord and bring love, life and unity to the body of Christ.