Day Thirteen: Humility
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:5).
Humility does not come easily or naturally to sinful people like you and me. We think far too highly of ourselves, of our virtues, of our tendencies, of our ability to resist sin. Yet time and again the Bible tells us that God has a special affection for the humble. God turns his back on the proud in order to lavish his grace on those who are humble. In fact, God will actively oppose the proud just as he actively blesses the humble. Few things expose us like our inability to turn away from sin and our lack of desire to do what is right. Therefore few things offer us better opportunity to turn to the Lord in humble dependence.
God is actively for the humble. God desires to pour out his blessings on the humble. As you seek to put off the sin of sexual impurity, and as you seek to put on the virtue of sexual integrity, you must humble yourself before God. Do this by admitting your tendencies toward sin and do this by freely owning your inability before God. Do this, above all, by looking to Christ 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.”
Father, I humbly confess that I cannot win this battle on my own. I am too weak. I am too sinful. I am too drawn to what is evil. So, as much as I am able, I humble myself before you. I ask that you would remind how much I have to be humble about. I ask that you would remind me of the humble Savior, who took on flesh for me, who obeyed the law for me, who went to the cross for me, who bled and died that I might have life.
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Tim Chalies is husband to Aileen and a father to three children aged 7 to 13. He worships and serves as a pastor at Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto, Ontario, where he primarily gives attention to mentoring and discipleship. He blogs daily at challies.com, is a book reviewer for WORLD magazine, co-founded Cruciform Press, and has written four books.
