1 Peter 5:5 Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Introduction
Review
Last week I made an effort to show you one side of the coin of humility - the side that faces toward people. I told you there is another side that faces toward God, but we did not have time to look into that then. Verse 5 talks about the man-ward side of humility, and verse 6 talks about the God-ward side.
We found last week that the man-ward side, humility toward people, is when you tear off your "I'm important" badge and consider others more important than yourself. Or another way to think about it is this - humility toward people is when you look at everyone from the perspective of a slave, rather than a master. We have a natural, in-born, built-in propensity toward a master mentality: "Serve me." Humility is a slave mentality: "Your needs are more important than mine. How can I serve you?"
If you approach people with a master mentality, not only will you have a lot of anger issues and relational conflicts, but God will oppose you. But if you live with a slave mentality, God will give you grace. Humility creates a vacuum that divine grace fills.
All that was last week. Now in verse 6 Peter brings up the God-ward side of the coin - humility toward God.
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand
The reason I am describing this as being two sides of the same coin, rather than calling them two different kinds of humility, is because they are not separate things. You can see in verses 5 and 6 that Peter is speaking of one, single virtue. All humility toward people grows out of humility toward God, and all pride toward people grows out of pride toward God. The coin does not exist without both its sides. You cannot have true humility toward people without first being humble toward God. And if you are humble toward God, you will be humble toward people. Humility is one, single virtue with a side that faces toward God and a side that faces toward people.
Essential for Salvation
And that virtue is such an essential component of salvation that very often Scripture refers to believers as "the humble" and unbelievers as "the proud."
Psalms 149:4 For the Lord takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation.
That phrase “the humble” is a synonym for “his people.”
Psalms 18:27 You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.
Psalms 147:6 The Lord sustains the humble but casts the wicked to the ground.
There are two categories of human beings: lost and saved - unbelievers and believers - enemies of God and children of God - proud and humble. All true believers have humbled themselves before God - otherwise they could not be saved.
Matthew 18:3 unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
So every Christian is humble.
“How can that be? In last Sunday’s sermon, almost every symptom of pride on the whole list described me. I've got all kinds of pride in my heart.”
God refers to us as the humble, not because we are perfectly humble, but because we humbled ourselves enough to repent of our sin and bow the knee to Christ as our Lord, and when we become aware of pride in our hearts, we repent. We still have prideful responses, but when we see them in our heart, we repent of them. We all stumble in many ways when it comes to pride. But if you will bow the knee to Christ and repent of your pride, God will count you among the humble.
So every true Christian has a degree of humility. In fact, your whole life is based on humility before God. However, even though bowing the knee to God is the thrust of your whole life, still there are all kinds of pockets of pride in our hearts that we battle against. And in verse 5 Peter calls us to fight against the lingering remnants of pride toward people, and now in verse 6 we need to fight against the lingering remnants of pride toward God.
Symptoms of God-Ward Pride
So what is pride toward God? Pride toward God is elevating one’s self to God’s place. I told you last week that when we behave in selfish ways toward one another it is because we have an "I'm more important than you" badge pinned on our heart. But if you could take that "I'm important" badge and turn it over and see what is on the inside of it it would say "I'm God." The root of pride toward people is pride toward God. And pride toward God tries to elevate self right up to God's throne, and shove Him off. It is the attitude of the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14.
Isaiah 14:13 You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. 14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High."
Pride is the attitude of heart that says, “I think I’ll just take over as God.” Now of course you are not consciously thinking that. Very few people ever take it to that extreme. For most of us, it is just like pride toward people – it is hidden so deep in the attitudes that it is only discoverable by the symptoms. So what are some of those symptoms? Let me list ten of them that I found in Scripture. (But first let me give a caveat. And this applies both to this list and last week's list of symptoms. I am not suggesting that pride is the only thing that can cause these symptoms. Many of them are complex sins that can have a number of causes. My goal is just to give you an idea of the various ways in which pride can manifest itself.)
1) Disobedience
The most obvious symptom of pride toward God is disobedience.
Psalm 119:21 ... the proud ... stray from your commands.
Straying from God's commands is a mark of pride because it is an effort to usurp God’s place as lawgiver. God says, “This is out of bounds - you must not do it.” And my flesh wants to indulge in it. So I say, “I’m going to make the rules right now. And right now I say this is ok for me to do. God, at this moment You are out as lawgiver, and I'll take over.” The proud heart wants to say, “I will decide what’s right and wrong for me." Every willful act of disobedience to God is a coup attempt - a play for His throne. Every time we sin, God says, “You are not permitted to go there,” and we say, “I’ll go there if I please.” That is pride toward God.
And every moment that goes by between the sin and the repentance is pride digging in its heels. Unrepentance is the most extreme form of pride toward God. All disobedience is an effort to usurp God's role as lawgiver.
2) Reliance on Human Wisdom
Pride also usurps God’s role as guide. Instead of submitting to God’s wisdom in Scripture, we rely on our own wisdom. God says, “This is the best way to go,” and I say, “No, I’m going that way.” God reveals something in His Word, but it contradicts what my gut tells me, or what my experience tells me, or what my education tells me, and so I go with my own ideas rather than Scripture. Every time I take a path other than what God says is best, what am I saying, “I know better than You, God. I’m the guide, not You.”
3) Self-Sufficiency
It is the attitude that says, "My fate is in my own hands."
James 4:13 Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." 16 As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.
Pride usurps God’s role as the author of providence. The prideful human hearts wants to imagine that it is in charge of tomorrow. We think we have so many resources at our command that we can control what happens. We have so much wisdom, or money, or ingenuity, or strength - we will be able to achieve our plans. So not only are we usurping God’s role as controller of providence, but also His role as provider. We forget that everything we have comes from Him.
1 Corinthians 4:7 What do you have that you have not been given? And if it was given, why do you boast as though it was not?
Everything you have was given to you by God - including the things you have done through hard work.
Deuteronomy 8:11 Beware . . . 12 lest, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, 13 and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply . . . 14 then your heart becomes proud, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt . . . [and you] 17 say in your heart, "My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth."
Pride forgets that even your own power and strength and hard work has been given by God, so that we become impressed with ourselves in some area. For example, we can become impressed with our abilities. God gives you some gift, and because developing that gift requires some hard work on your part, the next thing you know you are taking the credit for it. That is ability pride.
Another one is possession pride. We get puffed up over our salary or our possessions. Or it can be class pride - I was born of better stock. Or age pride - I’ve existed for 15 more years than you have existed, therefore I’m more important and I have nothing to learn from you.
Another one is appearance pride. Some of you are better looking than the rest of us, and you know it. And it is a matter of pride - as if you were responsible for that gift. For others it is knowledge pride. You have more education, you have read more books, you have a higher IQ, and you are puffed up with pride because of that. Proud people are amazed at how much they know. Humble people are amazed at how much they have to learn.
Or it can be achievement pride - "Look what I've accomplished." It can even be spiritual pride - "I'm more committed than these other folks. I pray more, give more, read my Bible more, serve more, I'm more faithful.”
Whatever area we excel in, we are tempted to take the credit for excelling. And even if we don't excel in anything, we can still be puffed up with comparison pride. This is when you justify yourself by finding someone else who is worse than you in some area. This is the old, “Well, at least I’m not as bad as him.”
2 Corinthians 10:12 When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.
Those are all various expressions of self-sufficiency. Because of my resources in some area, I don't have the sense that my success in that area depends on special help from God. I can handle this on my own. Of course I wouldn’t mind His help, but I don’t have that sense of desperation for it. That is self-sufficiency.
Little Need for Prayer
And the first area where it shows up is in your prayer life. When you are alert to how much help you need from God, you will pray. When you feel like you have got it covered, you will not pray.
Matthew 26:41 Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.
In our pride we think, "I have got my act so well together that if I just decide not to fail, that's all it takes. My spirit is willing, I am resolved to do it, therefore I'm home free." But Jesus said, “Even when you are ready and willing and eager to do the right thing - still, you need to remember that the flesh is weak. And without special help and protection, you will still fall. Your only hope is to pray!” So you can tell how proud you are and how inflated your opinion of your own strength is by your prayer life. The greater the pride, the less the prayer... and the less time in Scripture.
Little Need for Scripture
The proud person might study the Bible just so he can have an impressive amount of knowledge. But instead of studying like a starving man at a buffet, they study like someone who is just trying to stockpile information in his brain. He just wants to have an impressive level of Bible education. He studies to be informed, not transformed.
Little Need for Fellowship
Self-sufficient people do not pray much, their appetite for Scripture is small, and one more - they do not feel much need for fellowship. You do not feel much need for the grace that flows through the spiritual gifts of the saints. Especially the low-profile, low-level, nobody saints. Proud, independent people do not feel the need to be in a small group, they don’t need accountability, they don’t need fellowship, they don’t need you at all. Don’t expect them to ever ask for counseling - they are just fine on their own.
In fact, much of the time you will not even see them in church - because they don't need it. These are the kind of people who, when things get hard, feel like they need to take a break from church. Taking a break from church because things are difficult is like taking a break from eating because you are hungry. If you think you need a break from eating because you are hungry, you don’t understand that eating is the cure for hunger. And if you think you need a break from church because you are having a hard time, you don’t understand that the cure for spiritual weakness is grace. But self-sufficient people are oblivious to their needs.
And even when they do see their needs, they want to be their own supplier of those needs. They not only usurp God's role as lawgiver and guide, but also as supplier of our needs.
"Move over, God - I'm taking over Your job as the provider of all my needs."
Very often proud people will not accept help from others, because they do not want to be a charity case. Every human being on the planet is a charity case, but proud people will not admit it, because if they did it would throw into question their whole “I’m God” badge.
4) Burnout
Obviously burnout can be caused by numerous other things, but in many cases it happens because the person views ministry as a gift from them to God, rather than as a gift from God to them. Proud people think that the church is lucky to have them in ministry. These are the people who always need to be thanked. And if people do not express appreciation for their service, they get upset. Humble people feel fortunate to have the privilege of serving God and His people, and do not feel worthy of it. But they are delighted that God granted them that gift so the more they get to do it, the happier they are.
Being able to serve in ministry is compared, in Malachi 1, to sitting at a banquet table. When a person understands that, service is a humbling, joy-producing, energizing experience. But when ministry is thought of mainly as something you are giving, then it feels like a loss, and eventually you will become burned out. Christ's yoke is a rest-giving yoke. The yoke of pride is a draining, exhausting yoke.
5) Self-Condemnation
The world calls this self-loathing or self-hatred. It is when you are consumed with feelings of disgust toward yourself. You are saying, "I'm an idiot. I'm worthless. I'm a wretch. The world would be better off without me." And you are not saying that to fish for compliments - you really believe it. You really feel that way toward yourself.
"How could that be pride?"
It is pride because it usurps God's role as judge. What does the Bible say God's assessment of you is (if you are a believer)? It says God is pleased with you and takes delight in you, and that your sins are forgiven. So if the Bible says all that about me, but I am discouraged because my assessment of myself is much more negative, what does that say? It says my assessment is what matters, not God's. God says, "You're forgiven!" and my heart says, "No I'm not." That is self-condemnation, and it is rooted in the pride that wants to take over God's role as judge. If 1 Corinthians 12:14-22 says that every single member of the body of Christ is indispensable - every gift is needed, every person is crucial to the health of the body - if that is what God says, but my own assessment says, “I’m worthless,” then my assessment and God’s assessment are at odds. And if my emotions are more affected by my assessment than God’s, then I am usurping God's role as judge.
That is why the solution to what the world calls self-hatred is not self-love. The solution is humility - the kind of humility that will allow God's judgment to trump my own judgment.
1 John 3:19 This then is ... how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20 whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
The solution to self-condemnation is to understand that God's assessment matters and ours does not.
Three Responses to Sin
There are three directions you can go when it comes to dealing with your own sin and failure. One is to take the approach of the Pharisee in Luke 18 and just deny that the problem exists. Imagine that all your rule-keeping somehow cancels out all your sin.
A second approach is the Judas approach - self condemnation and self-destruction. Was Judas being humble when he became so distraught over his sin that he committed suicide? No, he was being proud, because he was looking to himself as the solution to his own evil (which always leads to despair because we have no solution). Paul calls that "worldly sorrow."
2 Corinthians 7:10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.
How does the truly humble heart respond to its own sin and failure? Instead of looking to self as a solution and getting depressed, it looks to God as a solution and gets forgiven. After the Pharisee in Luke 18 prayed his prayer of pride about how good he was...
Luke 18:13 the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' 14 "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God.
Pride cannot accept forgiveness, because it has not done anything to earn it. Humility knows that forgiveness is its only hope.
The amount of grace you get from God is related to the amount you believe you need. Proud people feel they are in need of nothing, and so they get nothing from God. But humble people feel they are in need of everything, and so they get every kind of help from God.
6) Over-Indulgence
When I usurp God's role as satisfier of the appetites of my soul, and I look to myself as the provider of my joy, look out because inevitably I will try to accomplish that through earthly things. Listen to how James indicts the proud people in James 5.
James 5:5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.
Prideful, self-sufficient people tend to indulge themselves in whatever earthly thing they think will satisfy the appetites of the soul. It might be money, or power, or popularity, or sex, or leisure, or very often - food. If you study the topic of fasting in Scripture you will find that fasting always goes hand-in- hand with humility. Fasting is one of the ways to teach your soul humility. But the converse is also true - pride goes with over indulgence.
Ezekiel 16:49 Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned
When we get puffed up with pride and arrogance, very often we overfeed ourselves.
7) Lack of Submissiveness to Authority
It is demeaning to the proud to be under authority, because they think it implies that the authority must be considered better than them, so they always have to be their own boss. Why would they be under someone else? They know better than anyone how things should be done.
A subtle variation of this is the person who will only submit to the highest authority in the organization. They do not think they have a submission problem, because if someone who is really high up, and really important, and who really commands a lot of respect tells them what to do, they will submit. But that is pride too. It is the attitude that, “I’m so important, and so intelligent, and so capable, that I am only answerable to the most important people.”
"Wait a second - doesn't that one fit better in the last week's list - symptoms of pride toward people?"
No, I think it really does belong in this list because 1 Corinthians 13 says all human authorities have been instituted by God, and rebellion against them is rebellion against God's authority. When we are unsubmissive to human authorities, it is because we think we know better than God.
8) Unforgiveness
One of the ugliest symptoms of pride is unforgiveness. Proud people have a huge problem with forgiving others because they do not feel like they need much forgiveness. They divide sins into two categories, the really evil ones (like murder and adultery), and the understandable ones (like gossip or worry). And they only commit that second kind - never the first kind, and so they don't really need all that much forgiveness from God.
In the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18:23-35, the servant's refusal to forgive is seen as outrageous because of how much he had just been forgiven. When you refuse to forgive someone, it is outrageous - not because their sin against you was small. It might have been huge. But it is outrageous for you to hesitate to forgive because compared to how much God has forgiven you, the sin against you is miniscule. When you cannot forgive someone it is because you do not feel the sins God has forgiven you really were not all that bad. You are not nearly as bad a sinner as the person who hurt you. Our own sin seems so small in our eyes. Isn't it usually true that when we gossip about other people’s sins, we can sometimes go for a half an hour, but when we confess our own sins, it only takes a few seconds? The proud person does not feel like he has received much mercy from God (because he didn't need much) so he is not willing to extend much to others.
9) Demanding to Know the Hidden Things
Psalm 131:1 My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.
God has decided which things He is going to reveal to us and which things will remain hidden. And some people just will not accept that. They resent God for not revealing the things they really want to know. That is pride, because it says, "God, I'm a better judge than You when it comes to deciding which things would be good for me to know."
Humility toward God
You are God; I Am Not
That is a handful of examples of symptoms of pride toward God. So what is humility toward God? Humility toward God is very simple: it is when you have an attitude that says, “God, You are the Creator; I’m the creature. You are God; I’m not. You are supreme in every way, and I am subordinate to You in every way. You are the Provider and the generous Giver; I am always the needy recipient. You are the solution to my problems; I am not. You are the source of all blessedness; I am the source of none. You are the Guide, You are the Teacher, You are the Lawgiver, You are the Protector, You are Controller of providence; I am none of those. You are in charge of protecting my interests; I am not. I trust in You, not in me. I contribute nothing to my own wellbeing apart from You. And I am totally dependent upon You for everything.” That is humility toward God.
If you lack humility toward God, everything in the Christian life fails. You will not trust God, because you are self-sufficient. You will not love others because you are too busy loving yourself. Your worship will not be much, because your focus is on you rather than on God. You will not serve, you will not give, you will not obey or repent or forgive - every one of the most essential elements of the Christian life will be crippled if not ruined altogether.
So humility toward God is essential. But how do you know for sure if you have it? What is the test of God-ward humility? Humility is tested in times of suffering. When hardship comes – that is when you discover how much of your humility is real humility, because hidden pride will rise up in response to suffering almost like a chemical reaction. Just like litmus paper turns red when it comes in contact with acid, so pride becomes visible when your soul comes in contact with pain.
Suffering Can Teach Humility
And suffering not only tests our humility, it will increase our humility - if we have an accepting attitude toward it. If you have a rejecting attitude toward the suffering in your life, then it will only expose pride. You can see this again and again in the prophets - that suffering was designed to cause people to humble themselves before God. But that did not happen if they had a rejecting attitude toward it. For example:
Amos 4:6 I gave you empty stomachs in every city and lack of bread in every town, yet you have not returned to me," declares the Lord.
You can tell - the purpose of the famine was to cause them to turn back to God.
7 "I also withheld rain from you ... 8 People staggered from town to town for water but did not get enough to drink, yet you have not returned to me," declares the Lord. 9 "Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards ... with blight and mildew. Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you have not returned to me," declares the Lord. 10 "I sent plagues ... I killed your young men with the sword ... yet you have not returned to me," declares the Lord. 11 "I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ... yet you have not returned to me," declares the Lord.
The purpose of suffering is to humble us, and it will accomplish that if we accept it. When Paul was given visions of heaven, the normal reaction of Paul’s heart would have been to become proud about that. So how did God protect Paul from that danger? How did God keep Paul’s heart humble? Suffering.
2 Corinthians 12:7 To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.
When the people of Israel left Egypt and traveled through the desert, God did not provide them with manna right away. They got to the brink of starvation. Imagine that - your little children crying nonstop because of hunger, and no way of feeding them. Weakness, anticipation of what it would be like to starve to death in the desert. At the last minute God finally provided food, but why did He wait so long to do it?
Deuteronomy 8:2-3 Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
Very often God sends suffering to teach us how desperate and helpless we are without Him. And the suffering lasts however long it takes for us to learn that. So if that is the kind of suffering you are experiencing, the sooner in the trial you allow your heart to be humbled, the less severe the trial will have to be. Peter’s term for that kind of suffering is this phrase the mighty hand of God.
Under God's Mighty Hand
So what is the significance of the word mighty in that phrase? Why not just say, “humble yourself under the hand of God”? Why is it important for Peter to remind us that His hand is mighty? Notice that word under.
Humble yourself under God's mighty hand.
To be under someone’s hand means to be subject to that person’s authority. When Hagar became pregnant by Abraham, Sarah started to become abusive toward her, so Hagar ran away. She fled out into the desert, where an angel speaks to her.
Genesis 16:9 Then the angel of the Lord told her, "Go back to your mistress and humble yourself under her hand.”
So for Hagar to humble herself under Sarah’s hand meant to submit herself to Sarah’s authority. In Judges 3, Israel defeated Moab in battle.
Judges 3:30 That day Moab was subdued under the hand of Israel, and the land had peace for eighty years.
They were subdued under Israel’s hand, meaning they were now under Israel’s authority. So to humble yourself under someone’s hand means to willingly place yourself in a posture of submissiveness to their authority.
And it also seems to convey a certain amount of severity. Not that God is against us. He is for us, and He is rescuing us, but sometimes the way God rescues us is through some pretty fiery trials and hardships. Peter has been talking about suffering throughout the book. I think the point Peter is making is that we need to humble ourselves in those times when God's ruling hand over us feels especially heavy. God never does anything bad toward His children, but He very often does things that are painful. When you get sick, you lose something precious, you get into financial trouble, circumstances are hard - those are the times when God's mighty hand is upon you. It is not there to harm you. It does not necessarily mean He is unhappy with you. It is for your good. But it is heavy. It is severe. It hurts. And those are the times when we discover whether we have a humble, submissive heart toward God or an arrogant, rebellious heart. It is easy to have what seems like a submissive posture toward God when He is doing what you want Him to do. But when you are under His mighty hand - when God is dealing roughly with you, that is when there is a temptation to stiffen your neck and harden your heart and resist what God is doing. But instead Peter calls us to humble ourselves under that hand.
Do Not Squirm
Have you ever tried to hold a child who does not want to be held? Children have an amazing ability to suddenly make themselves twice as heavy by a sheer act of their will. I don’t know how they do it, but somehow they know how to make themselves almost impossible to hold. He will arch his back and straighten out his body and squirm, and it is all you can do to keep him in your arms.
Now, what if that happens in some dangerous environment? You are standing right by a bunch of busy traffic, and the child wants to run out into the roadway? Or there is a cliff a few feet away, or a bunch of cactus or something? There is no reasoning with the child, he is trying to squirm out of your arms, he won’t give up, but you know if you put him down he will be hurt or killed, so what do you do? Your only option is to just use your superior strength and overpower the child. The more he squirms the more you have to clamp down and tighten your hold on him.
Is that pleasant for the child? No. It becomes very difficult for the child because he is resisting you with all his strength – yet he is being overcome.
That is what it is like for us when we refuse to accept God’s mighty hand. Those times when God’s mighty hand collides with our will and our plans and desires, our natural impulse is to resist. We start squirming in the midst of that suffering. Something happens in your life that really hurts, and you do not understand it at all. You cannot imagine how it could possibly be a good thing. You try to get relief, but there is no way out of it. God makes it clear - this is happening, and there is no stopping it. We have asked God for relief and He said no.
“No - you can’t have a husband (or wife) right now.”
Or “You can’t have children right now.”
Or “No, I’m not going to grant healing just yet.”
Or “There isn’t any other job opportunity - you have to stay under that really hard boss.”
When you suffer, it is fine to seek relief. But when God makes it clear that His answer for now is no, how will you respond?
Will you resist? Like that baby - arch your back, and struggle and squirm and fight against what God is doing? Will you set your heart against it, and complain and grumble about it, or become angry about it, resent it, become irritable or grumpy and make sure everyone around you knows how much you disapprove of this thing that is happening to you?
That is one possible response. The other is to humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and accept what He is doing. If that child stops squirming and fighting, and he just accepts that he needs to stay in your arms at this time, being in your arms can actually be quite pleasant. He does have to give up that thing he wants, and that’s hard. But if he will give that up and stop resisting, then you can relax your grip, he can just snuggle into your arms and lay his head on your shoulder and rest.
Do that, and God will lift you up and exalt you in due time - in His timing. When is that? The only thing I know for sure about it is it is not my timing. But it is perfect timing. Nothing better could ever happen to you than for God to exalt you in His time. And He will, if you humble yourself under His mighty hand now.
How do you do that?
I never got to number ten in my list of symptoms. The tenth symptom of God-ward pride is anxiety. There is a connection between pride and anxiety and worry. What is that connection? And how can you use humility to finally conquer the problem of anxiety in your life? That is where we will pick it up next time.
Benediction: Micah 6:78 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
1:25 Questions
1) Which of the symptoms of pride toward God are most evident in your life? (Disobedience, human wisdom, self-sufficiency, burnout, self-condemnation, over-indulgence, unsubmissiveness to authority, demanding to know the hidden things, anxiety)
2) When you "squirm" to get free when you are under God's mighty hand, what form does that squirming usually take? (Complaining, finding sinful ways out, anger, self-pity, giving up, distractions, etc.)
