Humility before God

https://odb.org/2025/02/03/we-are-lowly-and-loved

I am sure we all know by now one secret to the heart of God, and that is to be humble before Him. God loves the humble but hates the proud.

You can see this in Psalm 138:6 ESV – For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar. If you refer to James 4:6 NIV, James was even more direct – “God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble.”

We may say that the life of Saul and David is a contrast between the humble and the proud. While Saul took matters into his own hands and offered the burnt offering to God himself, David fought Goliath when he was still in his youth. Saul thought that as King, he was entitled not to wait for Samuel, the prophet and priest, in the sense that Saul probably treated the offering as just a formality to be complied with customarily.

But in contrast, David depended totally on God when he faced the giant Goliath (who was either 6′ 9″ or 9′ 9″). David repented of his sin when Prophet Nathan confronted him on his adultery with Bethsheba. In the end, it was Bethsheba’s son, Solomon, the wisest man alive then and probably the wisest ever lived, who carried on David’s legacy and formed the lineage that our Lord Jesus Christ, the one and only Son of God, came to earth as our Saviour and Lord. Repentance is humility before God and can turn sin into victory.

As humans and even as believers, we have a tendency to tell others of our achievements. We want to show that we have done something meaningful with our lives. In the process, we may overdo it and become proud. Pride comes because we think we did it with our own strength and ability. In most cases, it is because God blesses us that we are who we are today. The opportunity came about because God brought it into our lives. Perhaps our part is to take up the opportunity that God made available. That may have required courage and boldness. It may have been a step of faith. Remember the parable of the rich man? He had so much grain to last for many months and decided to tear down the old barns to build new ones and enjoy life. But that very night, God took his life.

In the end, who holds the keys to our continued success and prosperity? Our business may not grow bigger and bigger each year. That is why it is always prudent to give thanks to God and always have savings for the rainy days.

The message this morning is that if we feel deep down inside us that our success today is entirely our own doing, we are being proud. To be humble, we need to acknowledge and know that a lot of who we are and where we are is because of the goodness, providence, blessings, and grace of God. Remember, the LORD opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble. Why would we want God to be against us?