The Humble

When I prepare for teaching, I always run across great quotes. These thoughts can be very helpful in framing the Biblical principles I am trying to introduce or reinforce. These words certainly don’t add to Scripture but they do illuminate the spiritual truths in Scripture. I recently found a couple of new quotes that I really love.

Pride is the at root of every sin and humility is at the root of every virtue.

This is brilliant. In one sentence it captures so much about the contrast between pride and humility and the resulting consequences of each.

Pride is an obsessive concentration or absorption with oneself that sees everything through the filter of self. It’s an attitude of self-importance, selfishness and self-exaltation in relation to God. Any of the sins we commit - anger, envy, sinful speech etc… all have pride at the root of our behavior because we are prioritizing “self” over God and others.

The humble have a posture of prioritizing God and others over themselves. This produces virtues like charity, purity, kindness, self-control, patience and gratitude. The humble live with a spirit of dependency upon God while the prideful live with a spirit of self-sufficiency trusting in their own power and resources. The humble give credit to God for their accomplishments and blessings while the prideful take the credit for themselves. The humble make it a point to be lifelong learners while the prideful believe they already have all the answers. Lastly, the humble respect authority and try to live a life of obedience. The prideful are not respecters of God-given boundaries.

Humility is a virtue to be greatly sought after but never claimed. Once claimed, it is forfeited.

Humility is the highest of all virtues and is to be highly sought after. However, it is elusive in the sense that it can never be claimed. We cannot believe ourselves to be humble; we can only dedicate our lives to pursuing it.

Both the Bible and our lives around us are full of people that have taken great falls. The sins that can take us down are varied - greed, lust, discontentment, addiction etc… At the root of all of these sins is pride. Humility, on the other hand, is the virtue that helps us avoid the bondage of these sins.

Pride is something that is a lot easier to see in others than ourselves. When we do see it in others, we find it very unattractive. We all need to pray that God will expose the areas of pride in our lives. Dear Lord, open our eyes and help us to see these prideful blind spots.

Stay humble,

Big E

Matt. 5:6