Was Your Humility Showing Today?

Was Your Humility Showing Today?
All of you, clothe yoursleves with humility because "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." (1 Peter 5:5)
THE APOSTLE PETER, ADVISING CHRISTIAN believers to be clothed with humility in all of their relationships with one another, actually infers that genuine Christian humility should be their identifying uniform from day to day!
In the custom of that distant culture, men dressed according to their status and place in society.
In our own day, we also are accustomed to identifying many public servants by the kind of uniform they wear. If we suddenly need help or assistance, even in a strange city, we look around quickly to find a helpful man in the policeman's uniform.
We have no fear of the mailman who daily steps on our property. His gray uniform tells us that he is a servant of our government and that he has a responsibility for helpful public service.
So, the Holy Spirit through the apostle cites the necessity for members of the Body of Christ to be subject to one another in the bonds of love, mercy and grace. This honest posture of submission and humility becomes our uniform, and adornment really, indicating that we are the redeemed and obedient disciples of Jesus Christ and that we belong to Him!
Peter's request is not strange when we remember that it was Jesus Christ our Lord who dressed himself in humility and then took that difficult course down, down, down - to the death on the cross!
It is a scriptural and divine example that we have in the person of Jesus,
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, But made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name. (Philippians 2:69)
I think it is most important for believers to acknowledge the fact that because Christ Jesus came to the world clothed in humility, He will always be found among those who are clothed with humility. He will be found among the humble people. This is a lesson that not all of us have learned.
I want to refer here to a rather striking passage in the Song of Songs which I think throws practical light upon the desire of the heavenly Bridegroom to be in fellowship with those dear to him in places of humble service.
I am using this Old Testament story as a good and forceful illustration even though someone may insist that it does not stand up under the rigorous criticism of the Bible scholar and expositor. Frankly I do not know how anyone is going to soundly expound the Song of Songs - we are more likely to get every man's idea of what it means!
The illustration is in chapter five and the bride is telling of her distress because her beloved had called her during the evening to go with him and she was slow to respond. He called to her saying that his head was covered with the dew and his locks with the drops of the night, for he had been gathering lilies and myrrh and caring for his sheep.
In a kind of summary, she recalls that she was garbed beautifully for the night chamber but not in the attire which would allow her to respond quickly to his call, for he wanted her to join him in his humility and service among the sheep and in the duties of the gardens and fields.
Then she confesses: "I opened for my lover, but my love had left; he was gone. . . . I looked for him but I did not find him. I called him but he did not answer" (5:6).
By the time she was willing to put on the proper garment to join him in his humble duties, he was gone.
Now, the Scriptures are conclusive in teaching that God is always on the side of the humble man and Peter is in full agreement with the statement that God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.
Perhaps human beings are generally of the opinion that they will find Jesus Christ wherever they are; but I think there is such a thing as finding Christ wherever He is - and that will be in the place of humility, always!
Resisting pride
God resists the man who is proud - and stubborn! I believe God has to consider the attitude of the proud man as being resistance to Him. It is not very often - perhaps once in a hundred years - that a person will actually raise his face to God and exclaim: "God, I resist you; I defy you!"
There is no general pattern of that kind of defiance among men. We are much more likely to oppose God by resisting the side He is on and resisting His ways.
But the Scriptures plainly teach that when a proud and stubborn man resists God, he may expect to find that God is resisting him.
The man who sets his jaw and takes action against a Christian, even though he may be right in point of fact, nevertheless will find God in resistance to him because he is wrong in spirit and attitude.
God looks to spirit and attitude
I think God looks beyond the situation to the spirit and attitude. I think He is more concerned with how we react to abuse and mistreatment than to the fact that we have been abused by someone.
Some of us have had experiences of being "told off" most eloquently by people with a very descriptive flow of language; but the eloquence is lost completely insofar as God is concerned. If you are His child taking some abuse or persecution for His sake, His great concern is the attitude that you will show in return.
Will you reveal a stubborn spirit intent upon revenge? If you resist the Spirit of God asking you to demonstrate the love and grace of Jesus Christ, your Savior, you can be sure of one thing: God will resist you!
Now, that doesn't mean that God is going to switch and take the side of the other man who has abused you. It just means that God will have to resist you because He will always resist the stubborn man.
Even if you have the facts on your side, God will know whether you are wrong in your spirit. When God resists a man for his pride, it is not likely that He will send immediate and dramatic judgment. God probably will not signal His resistance to the stubborn man by a judgment that will come in the public place.
Rarely does God send His judgment dramatically. I have wondered if we might learn our lessons of humility and obedience more quickly if God were to resist a man as one soldier to another, with the clash of sword and the letting of blood?
Inward spiritual degeneration
But it does not work that way. When God resists a man for the sins of his spirit and attitude, a slow, inward spiritual degeneration will take place as a signal of the judgment that has come. A slow hardening that comes from unwillingness to yield will result in cynicism. The Christian joy will disappear and there will be no more fruits of the Spirit. That man will sour as a jar of fruit sours - and it is not an exaggeration to say that the man who has earned the resistance of God will continue to sour bitterly in his own juice.
God does resist the proud and I think the significant factor is this: the man may not have been wrong in point of fact, but he failed the test in his spirit!
Grace for the humble
It is significant, too, that the Scripture assures us that the same God who must resist the proud always stands ready to give grace to the humble. The Bible advises men and women to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God. It is my opinion that if our humility had to show itself only under the hand of God, it would be a relatively easy gesture.
If the Lord should say to me, "I am coming and will stand at the front of the church and I will expect you to come and kneel before me and humble yourself," it would be an easy thing for me to do because I know that no one will ever lose face in kneeling humbly before God Himself.
Any man would feel just as proud as ever even though kneeling before the eternal Majesty on high. But God knows our hearts and He doesn't allow us to fulfill His demands for humility with a mere gesture.
God may use people whom you think are not worthy to shine your shoes and in a given situation He will expect you to humble yourself meekly and take from them whatever it is they are pouring on you. In that spirit of meekness you would be humbling yourself under the mighty hand of God!
Think of the example of our Savior, cruelly beaten and cut with the lash. That whip was not wielded by an archangel but by the hands of a pagan Roman soldier. The abuse that was heaped on Jesus did not come from any multitude of the heavenly host - but from wicked, blasphemous and dirty-tongued men who were not worthy to clean the dust from the soles of His sandals.
Jesus willingly humbled Himself under the hand of men and so He humbled Himself under the hand of God.
Christians have often asked: "Must I humble myself and meekly accept every situation in life?"
Humility must never violate truth
I think this is the answer: As Christians, we must never violate morals or truth in humility.
If in humbling ourselves we compromise the truth, we must never do it. If it means a compromise of morality, we must never do it.
I am confident that no man is ever called of God to degrade himself, either morally or in truth. But we do have calling from God to humble ourselves under His mighty hand - and let the other party do the rock-throwing!
In this call to His people for true humility, God adds the promise that He will exalt us in due time! "Due time." I think that means a time that is proper to all of the circumstances. It will be the time that God knows is best suited to perfect us and a time that will bring honor to God and the most good to men. That is "due time."
It may be that in God's will He will expect us to wait a long time before He can honor us or exalt us. He may let us labor in humility and subjection for a long period because it is not yet His time - due time.
Brethren, God knows what is best for each of us in His desire to make us the kind of saints that will glorify and honor Him in all things!
Many of us have harmed our own children in such ways as these: teaching them to drive our cars before they were old enough; giving them too much freedom before they knew the meaning of responsibility and maturity.
These things come out of our misdirected kindnesses, but they will harm the child. To reward a man for things he has not earned and does not deserve will surely harm the man.
Saints must go through fire
Likewise, for God to come too quickly to the defense, before the saint has gone through the fire, will harm the saint.
We are faced here with Bible truth and not with the fiction of men.
A modern book of fiction would have had Daniel well protected. As he was about to be placed in the lions' den, a voice out of the sky would have spoken and every lion would have dropped dead.
But what actually happened?
God allowed Daniel's enemies to put him in the den of lions and he slept there with the lions until morning because God's "due time" for Daniel was in the morning, not the night before!
I would also like to see how the modern fiction writers would handle the story of the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace. They could make a whole book out of that!
They would be forced to some climactic, human trick to put out that fire just before the three young men were to be tossed into the furnace - but that would be putting out the fire too soon!
For God to have His own way and to be glorified in due time, those saints had to go into the fire and stay there throughout the night - due time was in the morning.
God's time
God has said He will exalt you in due time, but remember, He is referring to His time and not yours!
Some of you are actually in a fiery furnace right now. You are in a special kind of spiritual testing. The pastor may not know it and others may not know it, but you have been praying and asking the Lord: "Why don't you get me out of this?"
In God's plan it is not yet "due time." When you have come through the fire, God will get you out and there will not be any smell of smoke on your garment and you will not have been harmed.
The only harm that can come will be from your insistence that God must get you out sooner than He plans.
The Lord has promised to exalt you in due time and He has always kept His promises to His people.
As children of God, we can always afford to wait. A saint of God does not have to be concerned about time when he is in the will of God.
It is the sinner who has no time. He has to hurry or he will go to hell, but the Christian has an eternity of blessedness before him.
Wait it out
So, if you are in a furnace, don't try to come out too soon! Wait it out in the will of God and He will exalt you in due time - time proper to the circumstances. It will be a time properly designed to glorify God and to bless your own spirit!
One of our great weaknesses as Christian men and women is our continued insistence upon getting vindicated before the trial is over. God has said that He wants to try us and test us and when the trial is over, He Himself will bring in the verdict: "Tested - and found worthy!"
I only pray that we all may know how to conduct ourselves as trusting children of God during this period in which we await His return. Paul wrote that Jesus first came to earth in the fullness of time - it was God's time for Him to come that He might die for our sins.
Peter wrote that God will exalt us in "due time," speaking of the fact that Jesus will again return to earth in God's time. God's plan for us in these days is to be subject one to another in humility in preparation for the return of His Son to be exalted with His saints!