We often think of humility as being weak and helpless against all that we must face here on earth. But it takes greater strength to be humble than to be proud. Within ourselves, we don’t have the strength we need to be humble, but with Christ in us, we do.
When pride rules your life, the Lord doesn’t. “In whatever you do, don’t let selfishness or pride be your guide. Be humble, and honor others more than yourselves. Don’t be interested only in your own life, but care about the lives of others too. In your life together, think the way Christ Jesus thought” (Philippians 2:3-5 ERV).
Humility is the path to holiness because, in holiness, there can be no pride. The higher we think of ourselves, the lower our standing before God. You cannot draw near to God standing tall in the pride of your thinking. Nobody stands tall near to God.
Fail with grace and succeed with humility. “But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble’” (James 4:6 NKJV).
The Lord can do more with a talentless soul who is humble than a proud man who flaunts all the talents that he may have. If you want to be more useful to God, then you must be humbler before men. Pride is the barrier to what God can do in and through a person.
Humility is the path that leads to God. “Though the Lord is on high, yet He regards the lowly; but the proud He knows from afar” (Psalm 138:6 NKJV).
You cannot be humble before men so long as you base your self-worth on what they say about you. It is your pride that tries to be respected for something you’re not. It will only be in your humility that will allow you to be content with who you really are.
Humility before others reflects your humility before God. “…be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble’” (1 Peter 5:5 NKJV).
Spiritual power flows through the humility in a soul because it is bowed down to allow the waves to overcome them. When a man or a woman is yielded to God, then God can work through them. Pride prevents, whereas humility allows.
The more you see how small you are, the bigger the things God can do through you. “Humble yourselves [with an attitude of repentance and insignificance] in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you [He will lift you up, He will give you purpose]” (James 4:10 AMP).
Power from the Holy Spirit will not pour out into a prideful soul because there is no room in which it can be received. When people are full of themselves, they cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit. To be filled with humility, one must pour out all their pride.
Humility is the foundation upon which the anointing is poured out. “For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones'” (Isaiah 57:15 NKJV).
The moment you become proud of the power that God has given you, He will take it away. Just as surely as God can pick you up like a fork and use you, He can set you down and let you stay there. God will never give you or let you keep any power that He knows will ruin you.
The Lord sits us down so that He can build us up. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul…” (Psalm 23:1-3 NKJV).
Perhaps your pride has placed you in a penalty box. Don’t despair in your condition, for grace is as plentiful in God at your beginning as it is right now. You will never be the utensil you once were because you are being formed into a new creature each day. Repent and move on.
So long as you think something is beneath you, your pride is a hindrance to the Lord. Jesus modeled humility for us, teaching, “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:14 NKJV).
Perhaps your pride has kept you from ever receiving the spiritual power that you desire to have. Stop desiring the power and start allowing God to use you in whatever way He wants to. You’ll accomplish more for God in your humble waiting than your prideful efforts.
Your desire to be seen higher keeps God from taking you higher. “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God [set aside self-righteous pride], so that He may exalt you [to a place of honor in His service] at the appropriate time” (1 Peter 5:6 AMP).
Don’t you know that God can do more through you the moment you let Him? Pride strives and demands it is all up to us. Humility rests in the truth from heaven, which is that God supplies and all we need to do is receive. Let God make you into that soul that only He can accomplish.
Often, our desire for holiness is born out of pride in how we want to appear before others. Jesus taught, “Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted” (Matthew 23:12 NASB).
We all think ourselves humbler than we really are. We think our desire for spiritual power is purely to serve God when, in fact, there is a part of us that wants to be seen higher before men. Until you are humble, you are not. Pride before the fall and humility before the power.
The test of your humility is when people hurt your pride. “A man’s pride and sense of self-importance will bring him down, but he who has a humble spirit will obtain honor” (Proverbs 29:23 AMP).
Blessings to you,
Paul Balius
Go deeper
If this spoke to you, there is more. Paul Balius has written a book called “The Promise of the Holy Spirit”. It goes deeper into all of this, for anyone who senses they were meant for something more.
Paul has written three books. See them all
Powerful words
Thank you!
There is an illusory love for one’s false form, which would promote a perversion of passion. The rotten root of it is gracelessly grounded in the sick soil of that putrid pride which voraciously vaunts itself in independence from the Creator, the Root of all that is. It deems itself apart from the Redeemer, established to some degree as superior to the sole Source.
Such limited, lackluster, lifeless love, which is no real love, goes into an emotional tailspin when it falls, failing to maintain separation from the Sustainer with a stilted standard of self-sufficiency. The egocentric, scandalized self-time and time again collides with the Christocentric, triumphant truth that in the godless, unregenerate human nature, no good dwells at all, as the apostle Paul preaches. Jesus says that there is no good but God! In another place, Paul writes that all of that which we have we received, so we ought not to boast. In the Roman letter, he tells us that nothing is to him who wills or to him who runs but to God Who gives mercy. There are many other such verses of Scripture that we could recount.
Rather than panting for the prideful perfection of performance, may we look lovingly to the Perfect Potentate, longing lavishly for His pleasure, resting and reveling in His imputed perfection positionally, confident in the expression of His perfecting power experientially, unto the perfect Day. To God alone be the glory for all Goodness and all Grace. Amen.
It’s interesting to me that the one single most greatest barrier to God is our pride. Even when once were saved, it continues to fester inside of us, separating us as much as it can from the one thing that we need the most. May we all have our eyes opened by the Holy Spirit that we can learn to see and then repent of every prideful parcel that remains inside of us.
Yes, Paul, I agree. Pride is never satisfied with the extent of attention or adulation feeding it; it is like the darkest, dankest, bottomless pit, inhabiting it with and energizing it by invisible, wicked spirit forces of deception, destruction, and damnation, delighting dancing about lighting it yet more and more with strange fire, fanning its flames which reject and resent all that Christ Jesus is for His infinitely cherished bride He is triumphantly, perfectly beautifying, complete for all eternity.
Your post needs to be prayerfully reread regularly, as such is the seriousness, subtlety, and stubbornness of the sin, the selfsame sin that Satan and Adam and Eve were struck by/sucked into.
I love and appreciate you, my brother. I so look forward to us greeting and meeting in the holy, happy highlands of heaven hereafter in which is eternally no pride whatsoever, but in its stead vital, ever-conscious union and intimate, fully accepting communion, perfectly pervading peace and proportionless prosperity face to face with our Savior King, the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. Alleluia!
Thank you so much for all your kind and encouraging words to me. May the Lord bless you in all you do! 🙂