Humility

“as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility”  Colossians 3:12

Humility – John Alexander’s book Your Money or Your Life makes a very powerful point.  God is not interested in celebrity status.  God doesn’t care about success stories.  God doesn’t count our achievements.  God is interested in something quite different.  He looks for humility.

Oh, I don’t like that word.  I don’t want to be the toilet bowl cleaner, the garbage man, the ditch digger.  I want to be someone – someone important.  Someone with influence.  Someone who headlines the stage.  Someone who is recognized.  But God says that if I choose that road, I’ll be on everyone’s mind but His.  God is hunting for the one who is willing to be at the bottom.

Modern American Christianity is awash in the false gospel of self-fulfillment.  It is dangerously subtle.  We take good, solid words like “purpose” and “calling” and convert them into displays of self-proclamation.  We criticize the Hollywood celebrities while we generate “spiritual” personas.  Fame knows no moral boundaries.  It is just as easy to slip into the “I’m important” pit from the pulpit as it is from the concert stage.  Sometimes I wonder how any of us escape the clutches of self-recognition.  Jesus did it by slipping out the backdoor, by wandering away from the crowds, by avoiding public accolades.  Jesus took the back seat.  But I want to drive.

The word Paul uses here comes from tapeinos.  It is about unworthiness.  Until we fully understand the awful, destructive, hideous nature of our rebellion against holiness, we will not understand why we must embrace humility.  You see, most of us think that we are pretty much OK.  We think we just needed a little help from Jesus to improve our spiritual condition so that we could be acceptable to God.  We don’t understand and refuse to acknowledge that we are totally, completely unworthy.  Our sin put us forever outside God’s holiness and there is nothing we can do about it now.  It’s not a matter of how close we come.  It’s digital.  Holy or not holy.  And we are on the wrong side.

Humility is the corollary of repentance and the direct result of grace.  How would I dare look for the spotlight if I understood deeply that I owe everything to God?  My life is His stage, not mine.  I’m just the toilet bowl cleaner.

How important do you think you are?