Spiritual Growth Takes Humility; Pride Kills It, Where Do We Get Humility?

1 Pe 5:5 ...Be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble. (shouldn’t we know what God means by pride and humility?)

Pride - is dependence on and confidence in myself, it always seeks to take the credit

Humility - is dependence on and confidence in God, it only seeks to give God the credit

Matt 16:24 (Jesus) If anyone desires to follow Me, let him deny himself... (humility)

2 Cor 5:15 He (Jesus) died for all, that those who live should no longer live for

themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. (humility)

Ps 10:4 In his pride the wicked does not seek God; in all his thoughts there is

no room for God. NIV

Hab 2:4 Look at the proud! They trust in themselves, and their lives are

crooked; but the righteous (the humble) live by their trust in God. NLT

If we are proud, self dependant not God dependant, what irks us and ruins our growth?

• When we get exhorted by other Christians, meaning we get reminded by someone of a truth from scripture we once knew but are not currently walking in. It doesn’t mean that person is necessarily trying to be our teacher, just exhorting us. Pride still resents it, although its one of God’s key ways to keep us tender and out of sin.

Heb 3:13 But exhort one another daily…lest any of you be hardened (in your heart) through the deceitfulness of sin.

• To have our spiritual feet washed by another Christian. If I walk around barefoot my natural feet will get dirty and need washing. My spirit’s feet are the words I form in my heart and then speak. In order to advance spiritually, Ephesians 6:15 says my feet should have on and be ready to speak God’s words. But they get dirty when I speak words that contradict God’s words and God’s Spirit. Like when I lie, get angry, resentful, worried or speak doubt or false doctrine. If I can’t or won’t wash with God’s word, God may have to use someone else to do it. Pride will detest this.

John 13:14 …You ought to wash one another's feet (and allow others to wash yours).

• Checking to see if we have a beam in our own eye before trying to remove a speck from a brother’s eye. And pride, independence from God, is a huge beam. When someone tries to exhort us or wash our feet with God’s words, we would be wise to ask ourselves if the truth coming to us through this person is from God. Pride however will focus on getting offended over the person assuming we had a need, on how this affects our self-image, and on looking for a speck in that person’s eye.

Matt 7:5 First, cast out the beam from your own eye; and then you shall see clearly to cast out the speck from your brother's eye.

• To ask questions of those who seem to know God better than we do. Real questions, from the heart, that earnestly seek answers about God. Not fake questions to try and trap someone, or to showcase our own knowledge. Natural children ask questions all the time, because they want to learn and aren’t yet dominated by the self image concerns of adult pride. Pride, that won’t admit it doesn’t know something and would sooner pretend that it does and therefore doesn’t learn anything. Or feels that it should already know something and fears looking stupid if it asks a question. All image consciousness is nothing but pride.

Luke 2:46-52 KJV ...They found Him (Jesus at age 12) in the temple, sitting in the

midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions...

And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

All growth in our relationship with God requires faith. Humility and faith are at root the same. Pride and unbelief are at root the same too. Hence the proud can never grow.

How can a Christian replace prideful independence with humble dependence on God?

Not by any teaching of the Bible to my intellect that relies on my self effort to apply it.

The following are extracts from pages 45-50 of Andrew Murray’s book titled “Humility”.

Murray: “In the Church today humility is still sadly wanting. See how it was absent to begin with in Christ’s first disciples. There was in them a fervent attachment to Jesus. They had forsaken all for Him. But deeper down than all this there was a dark power, of the existence and the hideousness of which they were hardly aware, which had to be slain. Humility is one of the chief and the highest graces; one of the most difficult to obtain; and one that only comes in power, when the fullness of the Spirit makes us partakers of the indwelling Christ (God’s word) and His humble nature lives within us.