As Jesus Walked

July 15

“Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble," I Peter 5:5.

Humility is not something most people consider to be a virtue. The human proclivity is to self-assertion, self-realization, even self-aggrandizement. In the mind of the world, humility is for losers. Humility is the natural state of the inferior. If we can’t produce, if we are substandard, self-effacement becomes our lot.

This flies in the face of the Biblical point of view, of the way God sees things. From the vantage point of the One in whose hands resides all power, all authority, all life for all eternity, humility is the reasonable mindset for His fallen creatures, but we instead assume the arrogance of Lucifer who exalted himself above the Holy One who inhabits eternity (see Isaiah 57:15.)

We become like the essence of evil that he is when he said, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation, on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High,” Isaiah 13:14.

We further emulate him when we live our lives on the ‘edge’ of righteousness as he tempted Christ to do (see Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-13). When his ultimate scheme against the Savior, the crucifixion, failed at Christ’s resurrection, he proceeded to attempt to ensnare as many men into his failed scheme as he could.

It is the greatest ‘Ponzi Scheme’ of all time. The failed contender for the role of Ruler of the Universe mitigates the utter futility of his rebellion against God by suckering foolish men into his ploy. How can he succeed to any degree? How can anyone be so deluded into believing a defrocked angel?

The only way such a bogus misrepresentation of truth can succeed to any degree is the fact that satan plays upon the weakness of men—he plays upon their pride. Because he well understands the lengths to which a prideful entity will go to realize the object of its arrogance—self-aggrandizement in all its aspects—he can allure the deceived into his failed scheme.

But the man who emulates Christ resists the evil one as Jesus did. The humble man understands that the Lord, who, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so 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,” Philippians 2:6-11.

The wise man shall put on humility before God and allow himself to be “exalted in due time,” I Peter 5:6. May we walk as Jesus walked—not in the arrogance and foolish pride of men, but in the grace that God Himself gives to those who are humble.