Clothe Yourselves With Humility

"Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." (1 Peter 5:5)

Simply said, humility means being of low estate. It means seeing others as higher than our self. The word (tapeinoo) literally means "to level a mountain or a hill." Humble people are those who have no hills sticking up. They are not filled up with the hot air of arrogance and pride. They are not people who clamor to be President or Prime Minister. Jesus told the Jews that when invited to special dinners, they should assume that they were to take the seats that are for the least important people (Luke 14:7-11).

 Luke 3:2 (a quote from Isaiah 40:3-5) tells what the mission of John the Baptist was; "the voice of one crying in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled up, every mountain and hill made low." John’s mission was to preach a gospel of repentance -- of humbling oneself before the almighty God, so that people could receive the gospel of Salvation. His mission was to "fill in the valleys and flatten the hills."

C. H. Spurgeon wrote, "The whole treasury of God will be made over by deed of gift to the soul that is humble enough to be able to receive it without growing proud because of it. God blesses us all up to the full measure of what is safe for Him to do. If you do not get a blessing, it is because it is not safe for you to have one."

That life is most mature in the sight of God that is most childlike. That service the greatest of all that most humbly becomes the slave of all. Only the humblest of persons can walk closely with God. Only the empty, thirsty persons can be filled, and only those who are absolutely nothing in their own sight can be trusted with frequent miracles.

 Measure your humility by your hunger for Jesus to get ever more glory, by your burning desire that His name be exalted.
No, we do not all learn humility; for humility is a joyful, happy thing; humility is fellowship with God constantly renewed in hope. Whatever may have been my faults and my follies I can always start afresh. Humility confesses its sins and takes from the unmerited goodness of God the fullness of His free forgiveness, and, like a child, is happy again, ten thousand times over happy again; joyful in the sense that God loves me, joyful in the sense that He gives me over and over again my fresh opportunity. Charles Gore

 If I would like to please God, I am going to have to do it on his terms, and his first requirement toward holiness for his children is to be humble. Humility before God does not exist if not proved before men.
"I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility." (John Ruskin)