What is the main character quality Jesus displays in His time on earth? Humility. Throughout His life on earth, Jesus shows us true humility in His trust in, obedience to, and dependence on His Father and through serving people. As Christians, we are called to follow Christ’s example. In this post, I want to give you a clear picture of what humility is and why it is essential for us to learn and grow in.
First, what exactly is humility? In their book, The Art of Parenting, Dennis and Barbara Rainey define humility like this: “Not thinking too highly or too condemningly (lowly) of oneself; living in light of the truth that God sees and hears all and knows the depths of our hearts; treating others as more important than ourselves.” Humility is the opposite of pride. Humility is not thinking too highly of self. Pride is thinking of self above others. Maybe you’ve heard that pride is the root of all evil. So, it only makes sense that humility is the root of all good. Andrew Murray in Humility explains: “Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is, from the very nature of things, the first duty and the highest virtue of the creature, and the root of every virtue. And so pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil.” Murray places humility at the top of the list for us, God’s creation, to practice and grow in. This is because, without humility, we will not trust or depend on God.
With that said, humility is the perfect character quality. This may sound like a bold statement, but, if we think hard about this, how is true humility not perfect? Sure, people can show qualities of humility with pride in their heart. But if a person displays true humility, there is no room for sin. True humility brings peace, patience, kindness, generosity, love, service, faithfulness, forgiveness, mercy, and self-control. It does not mean to think less of ourselves, but to think about ourselves less, as my pastor likes to put it. We are to think of God and others before ourselves. God should be the focus and center of our lives, not ourselves. And people should be our mission and purpose, not our own selfish desires. Only humility breeds these results. We must realize we don’t have the ability in ourselves to be truly humble. It is through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus clearly lived this way on earth. He came down from Heaven, to our level, and became fully man. God the Father was the center of His life and people were His mission. He served His Father in perfect obedience and people in perfect humility by dying on the cross for all sin. Andrew Murray said: “His humility was simply the surrender of Himself to God, to allow Him to do in Him what He pleased, whatever men around might say of Him, or do to Him.” He also explains that: “Jesus Christ took the place and fulfilled the destiny of man, as a creature, by His life of perfect humility. His humility is our salvation. His salvation is our humility.” Jesus humbled Himself in complete submission to His Father and brought us all salvation. That is our perfect example of true humility. True humility requires the life of Christ in us (paraphrase from Humility).
Let’s now look at Philippians 2:5-11: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Jesus Christ, God’s Son, fully God and fully man, “did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.” Jesus came down to earth, from His heavenly throne, and laid down His life on the cross. That’s true and perfect humility.
Daily, we should be reminded of the sacrifice that Jesus paid on the cross. When we daily seek to understand that we had absolutely nothing to do with our salvation from our sin, then we are humbled. And, out of this humility, we can be vulnerable with others and share the good news of Jesus. The more we learn about and experience Jesus, the more we should be motivated to practice humility. It is grace, not sin, that humbles us.
To wrap this up, humility is the perfect character quality because it leads us to complete surrender to God and encourages us to serve others. That is what our lives are all about. We are called to serve God by serving others with Jesus as our perfect example. Without Jesus, we wouldn’t know what true humility and true love look like. He alone sets the standard and calls us to follow by helping us every step of the way.
