“Likewise, you younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject to one another, and be clothed with humility: for God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble. 6, Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.”
In the first four verses, Peter addressed the “elders” of the church, and in verse 5 he addressed the “younger.” When he changed the subject to humility, Peter addressed “all” of the members. He wrote that they should be “clothed with humility.” Peter’s call for humility is a call that is made throughout the Bible, particularly to the churches in the New Testament. The words “clothed with humility” caught my imagination and I thought about what that means. I want to share with you what I think it means to be “clothed with humility.” First, it means that we will not think too much of ourselves. Paul wrote about this in Romans 12:3: “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith.” An example of people who thought too highly of themselves is the Pharisees. Jesus gave an example in Luke 18:11-12: “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers or even as this publican. 12. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all I possess.” No one that I know would read this and say, “I would like to be like this.” But if we aren’t careful, we will be like this. We can become very proud of, for example, the things that we do at church and think that this puts us above everyone else. We can really become impressed with our practice of our religion, not realizing that our service is not about us but about Christ and His kingdom. Satan being the subtle devil that he is, can sneak into our hearts and minds and make us elevate self instead of Christ. This does not mean that we should think too little of ourselves either. The Bible tells us to love others as we love ourselves. Therefore being humble is not self-hatred, it means that we look realistically at ourselves and realize our righteousness comes from faith in Christ, not from ourselves. Second, clothing ourselves with humility means that we will not think too much about ourselves. We need to remember that there are other people in the world and that they do not exist to just please us. It would be a good exercise to keep a record of how much we think about ourselves in a day’s time. We could probably get enough evidence if we just kept a record of how often we think about ourselves in just one hour in a day. Here again, we can make it all about us instead of about Jesus. We need to be careful that we do not think about how everything we do will be to our advantage. For example, we could go to a certain church because that is where the people go who are admired in the community. This is not a put down of such a church, it is to remind us that this is not a good reason to attend a church. We need to find a church where God wants us to go, and we need to serve Him through that church. In other words, we should go to a church where we can make a difference, not one that appeases our egos. We should not make decisions just because it would make us look better. Sometimes God will lead us to do things that might not make us look better. Just read the New Testament and see what a price the early Christians paid for serving Christ. They knew that it wasn’t about them, but that it was about Christ. Again, this does not mean that we should never think of ourselves. God does not intend for us to just “let ourselves go,” and not tend to our health and welfare. Being “clothed with humility” means that we will not just think about ourselves. By the criteria that I have used to show how we can be “clothed with humility,” how are you doing? Go to the Lord in prayer and ask Him to help you take a good look at your life and see if you think too much of yourself, or too much about yourself. Do it! Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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