Humility is one of the hardest Christ qualities to emulate. Jesus personified humility by his death. Though He is God, he made himself lower than sinful humans by taking their sin. Though he did not deserve suffering, he obeyed the Father’s will which earned Him the wages of sin. It was entirely in Lord Jesus’ right to exercise His authority: to overcome his human tormentors, to punish those who showed contempt to Him, and to judge those He came to save. But He didn’t.
Humility is often simplified to having an attitude that others are better than oneself. While this is partially true, it removes the very Christ-like aspect of humility that is of the highest importance in a Christian life. Jesus’ humility revealed God and His character as the greatest priority.
How then should we live humbly today?
Humility is…
- Retaining focus on the positive well-being of those in your care amidst threat to one’s personal honour and reputation.
- Giving courteous, gentle and kind responses when customer service representatives have ignored and misguided you beyond your tolerance.
- Understanding that, though there is much you don’t understand about that frustrating person (or driver), there is always, always, always more to it than what you can know. Then, humility is offering the grace that is seemingly undeserved.
- Acknowledging that my own efforts are not good enough to satisfy God’s standards of goodness so I must accept another’s efforts.
- Humility then is accepting Jesus’ death and resurrection as that other effort. When one accepts Jesus’ efforts as God’s only standard to Himself, this is a person’s ultimate display of humility. When a person realizes that it is only through a belief in Jesus’ redeeming efforts and establishes a relationship with Him, this is when humility can become a part of daily life.
This Easter, commemorate Jesus’ death and resurrection by emulating Christ-like humility in every aspect of your life.
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