Humility

Kim was recently listening to the radio while working in her craft room. She heard a man speaking on the subject of humility. He  defined humility in a way that really spoke to her. When she shared this with me I thought this would be a good subject to put in the blog. The Bible says there is nothing new under the sun. We seldom have original thoughts anyway so I am "stealing" this thought in order to share it with you.

How often have you heard people say about themselves that they are worthless, no good, or just plain awful? I have heard many people live their lives with this cloud surrounding them echoing the Biblical words, "I am a worm." This is their attempt to be humble. Humility is a grace that we should attempt convey. But what is humility? Jesus was our best example of this virtue. He certainly would be a good one to follow. So how did he portray humility? Did he go around telling everyone how worthless he was? Did he have a dark cloud around him? Not at all.

What the speaker on the radio said that day was. "Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less" - CS Lewis. Humility contains the aspect of putting others and their benefit ahead of your own. I recently got a flyer in the mail for a youth conference. They were calling it "iConference." Taken from the term the iGeneration where we obsess about our iPads, iPods, iPhones, iMacs, etc., the play on the word "i" was obvious. We are living in a me first generation. Rev 3:14 is address to the Church at Laodecia. This church is characteristic of the church in our historical timeframe. The word Laodecia means "rights of the people." Boy does that ever make sense. Look around and notice the clamor for the rights for gays to marry, the right of the mother to terminate her unborn child, the rights of illegal immigrants, the right to bear arms, and the list goes on and on. We are obsessed with our rights.

Jesus came to "give himself a ransom for many." He demonstrated the greatest degree of love by dying on the cross for the sin of mankind. The Bible says, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Jesus demonstrated the greatest degree of humility by putting others ahead of himself. He died so we might live.