1.Accepting God’s sovereignty
Humility comes from accepting God’s sovereignty. A greater understanding of who God actually is, how great, powerful, wonderful and mighty He is and who I am in comparison to this will lead me into deeper humility. This is what Job experienced:
“My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” -Job 42:5-6
In his pain he realized how great God is and that He is actually nothing compared to him. This made him so humble before the Lord.
I want to accept God’s sovereignity. I want to accept that HE is God and I am not and at the same time understand what great authority He has. I want to acknowledge His Lordship in my life. HE is my master. I am His servant. HE is greater than I. And I am only living for His glory. I want to recognize that God can do anything. His power is beyond measure. His authority knows no bounds. There is nothing and no one higher than Him.
2. Understanding who I am in Christ
I can only be humble and serve in humility when I understand who I am in Christ. When my heart is not anchored and my security not found in him, I will have to seek approval and security in what I do. At this point I will be easily ready to take glory for myself instead of giving God the glory that only belongs to him. Finally, I don’t have to brag, envy or compare because I feel safe, stable and secure enough in Christ and what he tells me who I am.
At the end of a day I don’t wanna hear people say: “Oh, what a wonderful, gifted person she is”, but rather, “What a wonderful God he is.” I want to glorify God in everything I do, not myself. Using our gifts for His kingdom is meant to bring God higher glory and honor.
3. Realizing that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior
I experience over and over again that whenever I see needs or suffering or difficult situations I get the feeling that I have to fix this, that I have to save this person. But then I have to stop a minute, breathe deep and realize that JESUS is the savior, not me. God never gave us the task to save people. We can help, encourage, preach, disciple and serve but there’s a time we have to step back and let God do His thing. I need to get the understanding John the Baptist had of his role in God’s ministry:
“I am not the Messiah. I am here to prepare the way for him—that is all. He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.”
-John 3:28+30-
We are only preparing the way for God to move, to do his work, to bring hope, change and transformation. To save souls. In whatever we do it is not about us. For me, worship reminds me of exactly that. It turns my vista away from myself and towards Jesus.
Indeed, only God has access to people’s hearts and the power to save and transform. In the end, don’t wanna find myself trying to do what only God can do. Rather I want to focus on staying dependent on God in whatever I do and asking Him to do His work in and through me:
“It’s no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me.” -Galatians 2:20-
Or to put this in picture: We are like the moon. The moon does not have light on his own, he just reflects the sun. The Moon can only be seen as a result of the Sun’s light reflecting off it. We are only reflecting the light, which is Jesus.
We need to understand that we are just the pipe, the vessel, the transmitter. It is not our love, our hope and our joy we give. We just allow the fullness of God to flow though us.
4. Being aware that God doesn’t need us
In fact, God doesn’t need us to save anyone. He can do His work without us! Often we think God needs us but instead he just loves to use us in his work. Everything he does through us he could also do without us. God is never dependent on us to fulfill his will. But because he loves us he wants us to be part of the story. And this is a privilege we should be grateful for, and that in turn keeps our hearts humble.
