Humility Is An Inference

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When it comes to the duty of humility, the body is generally divided into two large sections. There are those who do not think of humility much, for the whole thing seems entirely unrealistic, and then there are those who pay a great deal of direct attention to this duty, and it is that kind of direct attention that is fatal to their efforts.exhort

The first group makes no attempt to do the right thing, and the second group spends a lot of well-intentioned effort trying to accomplish the wrong thing. “Be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble” (1 Pet. 5:5).

What we must come to learn is that humility is an inference. It is always and everywhere a comparative inference.

If you gaze directly at yourself, trying hard to see a lowly worm, what you will wind up seeing is a very proud worm, a worm who fills up the whole screen.  Not only is this not humility, it is the very antithesis of it.

But when our thoughts are full of God, when our vision is occupied with Christ, and when we make much of Him, we know and see ourselves in true perspective, and it is a delight to do so. There is a great pleasure in being small. When you stand looking out over the Grand Canyon, or if you gaze at the night sky through a powerful telescope, you see yourself as small precisely because you are seeing something that is enormous. And in seeing something magnificent, you readily make the inference that humility loves to make.

Not only is there pleasure in being small, there is pleasure in being lifted up from that small position and recognized. “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time” (1 Peter 5:6). Let us come then to humble ourselves in the presence of God.

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Rob Steele
Rob Steele
7 years ago

Amen. Think of yourself less, as the saying goes. This pride of ours is really deep down in our souls and no resolutions or spiritual exercises can touch it. That doesn’t mean we should neglect all that but only God can do anything about it and he seems to do it by killing it, which is scary. He brings us to himself and the consuming fire does the business. (Jeremiah 9:24).