Humility

[graber_89]

 What is humility?

It's a question I've been pondering lately. It's another one of those "Christianese" words that sounds great in theory but I'm starting to wonder how well it's actually understood, or more importantly, practiced.

I read a Rick Warren quote that said, "Humility isn't putting yourself down or ignoring your strengths; it's being

Comments

[aarons_uncle]

Do you think that perhaps one of the greatest problems we have with humility comes from preachers ignoring what is the most obvious fact about Jesus and his "humility", and that we need to apply that to ourselves? (Which I think you have skirted but perhaps not stated outright.)

Someone who is worthless (and I don't believe anyone fits that discription) is not being humble when they say that. Like wise, if like Uriah Heap in Dicken's David Copperfield, someone who continually tells you how humble they are, is not being humble. AND a believer who is constantly looking at SELF to see if they need to humble themselves more and make sure everyone notices how humble they are, is not being humble.
The Romans 12 passage (this has echoes of me saying this before) that preachers have hammered into us about how we ought not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought, has given us all a complex and produced what is the exact opposite of humility, which is in fact false humility, which in turn is just pride. (The verse goes on to balance it and that is reminding us to "soberly evaluate who you are, what giftings you have been given and THEN use them not for your self but in service for the body.
The "I am a worm" relates only to our inability to save ourselves, or "merit salvation". But worms can't minister to the body unless it is as bird food.

If we are too conscious of our being humble, we are too stuck on our self. As in the chorus about worship (which word is "service" we are to "Forget about ourself and concentrate on him and worship him, worship him, Christ the Lord."

We attended prayer meetings where just about every week we had the same precious saint stand up and go on and on about What a miserable wretch he was, We said he was stuck in Romans 7. Then one glorious day, he stood up and gave testimony, He arrived at Romans 8 and understood although he had been a miserable wretch, there was deliverance in the Life in the Spirit. Knowing his position in Christ made all the difference. Being set free in the Spirit delivers us from the bondage "to perform" and one of the "performances" the false teaching about humility takes us to, is the denial of what gifts God has given and as long as we are in denial of what we are equipped to do for the body, we fail to do. Whereas honest appraisal says yes I do have this or that ability, BUT it is a Gift, and not of my own doing (true humility) and I am determined to give it to the Lord that he might use it for the good of the body. But the focus in neither on us or our gift but on the Lord. This mind in us. We are not grasping to hold on to anything (including our reputation) but truly humbling ourselves so that we might serve others. (Usually, I would say, by just getting on with the next task at hand and doing it to the best of our ability.)