Ten Steps to Humility

James 4:7-10
P. G. Mathew | Sunday, February 23, 2014
Copyright © 2014, P. G. Mathew

In James 4:4–6, James counseled that what we need most is the grace of God so that we can love God with all our heart and oppose the seduction of the world that is controlled by the devil. God gives this grace to the humble. Every moment God actively opposes the proud. The proud are the devil, demons, and every unbeliever, as well as those believers who live arrogant, sinful lives.

So we are told in the psalms, “Serve the LORD with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Ps. 2:11–12).

In James 4:7–10, James gives ten steps, ten commandments, that we may become humble before the infinite, personal, all-wise, all-holy, almighty triune God, who is both Savior and Judge of all his creation. The ten steps to repentance are: submit to God; resist the devil; draw near to God; cleanse your hands; purify your hearts; grieve; mourn; wail; change your laughter to mourning; and humble yourself before the Lord. In other words, repent.

These ten imperatives are our responsibilities. James says we must do them urgently, immediately, and once for all, as the Greek text indicates, in view of the truth that God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble (James 4:6).

There are also three promises God himself makes in this passage. He guarantees to do three things for us when we do these ten things to humble ourselves before God. God guarantees, first, that the devil will flee from us; second, that God will draw near to us; and, third, that God will exalt us.

So let us examine these three promises based on the ten steps to humility.

 

The Devil Will Flee (v. 7)

SUBMIT TO GOD

The first promise is that the devil will flee from us. We are to go down two steps to achieve this. The first step is to submit ourselves to God. What is man before God Almighty? He is grass. He is falling blossoms. He is mist. He is clay. He is a dying man. The wages of sin is death. All proud believers are exhorted to surrender fully to God, our Creator and Redeemer. If we don’t, he will chastise us, and, in mercy, even kill us that our spirits may be saved.

So James says, “Submit yourselves to God.” We must do so right now. Jesus Christ is Lord; he has been given all authority in heaven and on earth. “Submit” is a military term. It means that we must look for true spiritual authority and come under that authority to hear and to do God’s word. We are not to argue about it. We must come under the authority of God, who revealed himself especially in the holy Bible.

We must also come under God’s delegated human authorities: parents, husbands, pastors, and the authority of a just government. Younger people must submit to their elders. We are to take up the yoke of Jesus and learn of him. We are to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Christ the crucified. We are to pray, “Thy will be done,” and do his will gladly. We are to love God more than our life itself.

Jesus submitted himself to his parents. He submitted to his heavenly Father in everything. He never sinned. In life and in death, he glorified his Father. We are to do the same.

If we challenge God as Pharaoh did, saying, “Who is the Lord that I should obey him?” we will experience the ministry of his mighty hand in putting us down. God does not tolerate arrogance from his finite creatures. The essence of arrogance is enmity toward God. Paul states, “The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so” (Rom. 8:7).

 

RESIST THE DEVIL

The second step is that we must resist the devil. We must fight, not against God and his delegated authorities, but against the devil, against the world, and against the flesh. The devil is our accuser, but God is our advocate. Christ is our advocate in heaven and the Holy Spirit is our intercessor on earth.

The devil desired to sift Peter like wheat. But Jesus prayed for him, and his faith in God did not fail. We are not to give place to the devil by sinning, that is, by transgressing God’s law. But if we do sin, we are to repent and seek God’s forgiveness immediately.

The devil is a liar and a murderer. Remember how Satan filled Ananias and Sapphira to lie to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5)? Satan tempted Jesus all his life. But Jesus overcame him by sword of the word of God and the power of the Spirit.

At Caesarea Philippi, when Jesus spoke about going to the cross, Satan opposed Jesus through Peter, and Jesus opposed Peter and the devil: “Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ‘Never, Lord!’ he said. ‘This shall never happen to you!’ Jesus turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men’” (Matt. 16:22–23). People of God, always have the things of God in your minds!

Satan opposed Job through his wife: “[Job’s] wife said to him, ‘Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!’” (Job 2:9). But Job opposed Satan successfully, and God commended him (Job 2:10; see also 42:7–8). Likewise, Satan opposed Joshua the high priest. But God helped Joshua by solving his sin problem (Zech. 3:1–4).

When we are led by the Spirit and the Scripture, we can discern the thoughts of the devil and oppose them. Paul says, “For we are not unaware of his schemes” (2 Cor. 2:11). The devil puts thoughts into our heads. Paul also says, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:4–5).

We can resist the devil in the power of the Holy Spirit. We oppose him by putting on the whole armor of God (Eph. 6:10–18): the belt of truth, that is, the gospel; the breastplate of righteousness; the boots of the readiness to share the gospel;¹ the shield of faith to quench all the fiery darts of the devil; the helmet of salvation—meaning the assurance of salvation, that we are saved, we are being saved, and we shall be saved on the last day by the Lord Jesus Christ; the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;² and the communication gear, which is prayer. And God will hear our prayers and guide us. How do we put on the Lord Jesus Christ? We do so by being filled with the Spirit and making no provision for the flesh (Rom. 13:14).

The devil is a defeated enemy. Christ by his death once for all defeated him. James tells us the devil believes God and trembles, but he will not obey him. Jesus said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But [rejoice]! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). We read, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Heb. 2:14–15).

Christ’s victory is the victory of the church, the victory of every Christian. So we read, “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death” (Rev. 12:11).

By submitting to Christ, we can resist the devil. We can say “No” to sin and “Yes” to Jesus Christ. We are able to put to death by the Spirit the misdeeds of the body as we are led by the Spirit. If the triune God is for us, who can be against us? If the holy angels are for us, who can be against us? In Christ, we are told, that we will trample underfoot the devil. Paul writes, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you” (Rom. 16:20).

God promises that the devil shall surely flee from us. And he shall. It is a divine promise, a divine guarantee. If we do what God tells us to do, the devil shall surely flee from us. Yet he will come back again and again, as he did to Jesus. Therefore, friends, we must keep on trusting God, obeying God, and worshiping God in the home and in the church. We must keep on hearing the preached word and applying it to our lives, all the time knowing that this opposition from the devil shall last until we die.

Remember what happened to David and Peter. Yes, the devil is a supernatural being. But he is a fallen creature. He is a very powerful, personal being. We should not underestimate the devil. But he is also a defeated being. He can only attempt to deceive, and he will only successfully deceive the biblically ignorant and stupidly arrogant. If you are arrogant and ignorant, you will be attacked by the devil every day. So walk in the light as God is in the light, and you shall enjoy freedom from the devil.

Every Christian is an overcomer in Christ. We are in Christ, and in Christ we are more than conquerors. Remember, the Lord is with us. Isaiah said, “For this is what the high and lofty One says—he who lives forever, whose name is holy: ‘I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite’” (Isa. 57:15).

The Lord is with us always, even unto the end of the ages. He shall never leave us. He is with us to help us, to guide us, to strengthen us, to provide for us, to give us grace, and to fight our battles. If the Son sets us free, we are free indeed.

So Paul says, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (1 Cor. 10:13). Paul also says, “But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness” (1 Tim. 6:11). He admonishes, “Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22).

Joseph submitted to his father, to Potiphar, to the prison warden, to Pharaoh, and above all, to God. He resisted the devil, and he experienced freedom from the devil. Remember Joseph said, “How can I do this wicked thing and sin against God?” Learn from this young man, Joseph.

Jesus submitted to his Father, fought against the devil and triumphed over him. Let us enjoy his victory!

 

The Lord Will Draw Near to You (v. 8)

The second promise is, “Draw near to God and he will surely draw near to you.” This idea is found also in Zechariah 1:3 and Malachi 3:7. Paul also speaks of this wonderful promise of God being with his people:

 

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. (2 Cor. 6:14–18)

 

Come away from the wickedness of the world. Come away from all worldliness. It is we who move away from God; God does not move away from us. We are the ones who leave his holy presence and our first love. Our hearts become divided in their loyalty. We are lovers of the world, sin, money, and stuff. We become lovers of sinful pleasures.

But listen to what Jesus says: “I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place” (Rev. 2:4–5).

Our problem is sin. James says that we are filthy. But God is holy. Therefore, we must come to him clean, washed in the blood of the Lamb. We must not conceal our sin, but confess and forsake it. When we do so, we will find mercy from God (Prov. 28:13). The Lord himself promises, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chron. 7:14).

Don’t be a hypocrite, a Pharisee. Come to God as a publican, as a sinner, confessing and trusting in Jesus. Come near, as the prodigal did. He went away from his father to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. But then he came back.

 

When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.” So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. (Luke 15:17–20)

 

Come confessing to the Father. He shall come running to hug you, kiss you, forgive you, receive you as his son, and rejoice with you. He will never drive away anyone who turns to him in repentance and faith. (PGM) Jesus himself made that promise: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37).

 

HAVE CLEAN HANDS

James’ directive, “Have clean hands,” stands for our behavior, our conduct. Paul says, “I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing” (1 Tim. 2:8). The psalmist asks, “Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false” (Ps. 24:3–4). “Heart” indicates faith and love; “hands” stands for deeds.

 

HAVE A PURE HEART

Peter says, “You have purified yourselves by obeying the truth.” How can we have a clean heart? By obeying God. Peter also says, “You have purified yourselves . . . so that you have sincere love for your brothers.” A pure heart is not double-minded; it is single-minded. Purity of heart means we will seek only one thing, as the psalmist declares: “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple” (Ps. 27:4).

We should not seek God to make money. We are to come to God with clean hands and a pure heart. The Hebrews writer exhorts, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. . . . Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water” (Heb. 4:16; 10:22). As we come with clean hands and a pure heart, we will find mercy. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matt. 5:8).

When we draw near to God in this way, he will surely draw near to us to help us. The Hebrew writer says that since our Lord Jesus “suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Heb. 2:18). He also declares, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). We have a high priest who will help us, sympathize with us, lift us up, forgive our sins, pour out his Spirit upon us, and give us grace.

Idol worshipers cannot draw near to God. They must abandon all their idols so that they can worship God: “God said to Jacob, ‘Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.’ So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, ‘Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes.” (Gen. 35:1–2).

We have to go to Bethel, where God is, to worship him, but we must go in a certain way. There is a way in which we must come to church to worship. And once there, if we remember that a person has ought against us, we should not worship, but go and take care of the problem. We must come to worship with clean hands and a pure heart so that our worship will be accepted by God. Then we can go out with joy as a blessed people.

Jesus told us, “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you” (John 15:3). We are made clean by the word of God, when we understand it, believe it, and do what it says.

We must use all the means of grace to draw near to God, especially public worship on the Sabbath day. The psalmist says, “I was glad when they said unto me, ‘Let us go unto the house of Lord’” (Ps. 122:1). We look forward to church, because if two or three are gathered together in the name of Jesus, he guarantees to be with us—to speak comfortably to us, to bless us, and to heal us. The Lord is our shepherd; we shall therefore lack nothing.

So James gives us this glorious promise: As we draw near to God, he will draw near to us. Jesus spoke about this: “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him. . . . If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:21, 23).

Yet we cannot take God and his presence for granted. In 2 Chronicles 15:2 we find this principle: “The LORD is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.”

 

GRIEVE, MOURN, WAIL, CHANGE LAUGHTER TO MOURNING AND JOY TO GLOOM

Let us follow the steps to humility and draw near to God. We must come to him with clean lips (Isa. 6:5–6), clean hands (Ps. 24:4), a clean heart (Ps. 73:13), and a clean mind (James 4:8). We must also come with godly sorrow, which is being sorry for our sin. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matt. 5:4).

We must come, afflicting ourselves by fasting and praying, as Joel exhorts:

 

Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly. Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber. Let the priests, who minister before the LORD, weep between the temple porch and the altar. Let them say, “Spare your people, O LORD. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’” (Joel 2:15–17)

 

Paul speaks of godly sorrow in his second letter to the Corinthians: “Yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter” (2 Cor. 7:9–11).

After betraying Jesus three times, Peter wept bitterly (Luke 22:62). That is godly sorrow. He was weeping in repentance.

In our modern world, people want to be entertained. Some even come to church simply for the entertainment many modern churches provide. But James says we must turn the silly laughter of fools and the superficial joy of the sinning person into true mourning and gloom. We must come to the Lord in true repentance, and the Lord shall draw near to us to help us, to bless us, and to forgive us.

 

God Will Lift You Up (v. 10)

So James tells us to submit ourselves to God, resist the devil, draw near to God with clean hands and clean hearts, grieve, mourn, wail, and change our laughter and joy to gloom. And, finally, he says, we must humble ourselves before the Lord. And then he gives the third promise: “and he will lift you up.”

We must humble ourselves in the presence of the all-holy, almighty Lord. Peter exhorts: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time” (1 Pet. 5:6).

How do we humble? Come before him with fear and trembling. Seek the lowest place before him. And know that his mighty hand can and will put down the proud Pharaohs and proud Nebuchadnezzars of the world. He has done so before, and lifted up others.

Daniel describes how God humbled the proud Nebuchadnezzar:

All this happened to King Nebuchadnezzar. Twelve months later, as the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, he said, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?”

The words were still on his lips when a voice came from heaven, “This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your royal authority has been taken from you. You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals; you will eat grass like cattle. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes.”

Immediately what had been said about Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was driven away from people and ate grass like cattle. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird.

At the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?”

At the same time that my sanity was restored, my honor and splendor were returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored to my throne and became even greater than before. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble. (Dan. 4:28–37)

 

God knows how to put us down—we who are falling blossoms, mere grass, dying beings. If you don’t think you are going to die, just look in the mirror. It is written on our faces. We all must depart from this world. All men must die.

God’s mighty hand can put down the proud Pharaohs and Nebuchadnezzars of the world. Yet the same mighty hand can lift up the lowly to the heavens. God himself will change our mourning into dancing. The psalmist says, “You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever” (Ps. 30:11–12). In Isaiah 61 we read, “[I will] proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of the spirit of despair” (Isa. 61:2–3).

Let us weep, wail, groan, and humble ourselves before God. May we get rid of stupid laughter and frivolous joy. May we go down, that God may lift us up and give us true joy and gladness, as we read in Jeremiah’s prophecy: “Then the maidens will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow” (Jer. 31:13).

Let us repent, pray, and cry out to God. Go down in the presence of God. Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord and said, “Woe unto me; I am finished! I am not worthy to be a prophet. I am unclean.” And the Lord touched his lips and made him truly clean (Isa. 6).

The chief end of man is to glorify God, honor God, hear and do the will of God, and enjoy God forever. The way of true success is humility. We find this principle in several places. For instance, Jesus says, “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14). Elsewhere he declares, “But even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Jesus Christ—the eternal God, God’s Son—came as the suffering servant.

The way to the top is to go to the bottom before God. And all of the proud shall in due time hit the bottom. Their foot shall surely slip. So we read, “Jeshurun,” who stands for God’s people, to whom God gave all things, “grew fat and kicked; filled with food, he became heavy and sleek. He abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock his Savior” (Deut. 32:15). But then the Lord says, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them” (Deut. 32:35). May God help us by faith to humble before God before he deals with us.

In Luke 5 Peter saw Jesus as God and cried out, “Depart from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” The more we grow in grace and in the knowledge of God, the more we read the Bible, the more we believe in the Bible, the more we come to worship and hear the word preached, the more we pray, and the more we humble ourselves, the more God shall make us successful.

When we celebrate communion, we must humble ourselves. If we don’t, God will humble us. He may even kill us, as Paul writes: “That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 11:30). Our duty is to humble ourselves, not to become arrogant. We need more grace for this, and God says he gives more grace.

Joseph humbled himself by God’s grace, and the Lord was with him always. The phrase, “The Lord was with him,” is repeated throughout Genesis 39. The Lord was with Joseph when he was in Potiphar’s house, in prison, and everywhere else. In 2 Chronicles 15:2 we read that the Lord is with us when we are with him. So we are to humble ourselves, and the Lord will exalt us, in his time. And in God’s time, Joseph became the prime minister of Egypt. It was all the Lord’s doing.

So also our Lord Jesus humbled himself (Mark 10:45). He always obeyed the Father; he never transgressed the will of God. And God exalted him, as Paul declares,

 

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 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 the Father. (Phil. 2:5-11)

 

The suffering servant of Isaiah is the Lord. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. Every time we preach, we are presenting to you this Lord Jesus Christ. The job of those listening is to ask, “What must I do to be saved?” The answer is, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.

In Jesus Christ we are already exalted. He came to our hell and saved us. In his death, we died to sin; we were buried with Christ; and we have been raised with Christ to live a new life. With him, we have ascended to God’s right hand, and even now we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. His triumph is our triumph and his authority is our authority. Therefore, we resist the devil by Christ’s authority, in his name, and he will flee from us.

According to the Bible, in Jesus Christ we are super-conquerors. In him we own all things. So Paul writes, “So, then, no more boasting about men! All things are yours” (1 Cor. 3:21). He also says, “[We are] sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything” (2 Cor. 6:10).

Not only that, in him we will judge the world and the angels. Paul queries, “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? . . . . Do you not know that we will judge angels?” (1 Cor. 6:2, 3). The authority, power, and dignity of Jesus Christ are given to us. Unbelievable, but true! The Lord exalts the humble.

Jesus came to bring us to God. He came to bring us to glory. So we read, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit” (1 Pet. 3:18). The Hebrews writer declares, “In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering” (Heb. 2:10). Paul says, “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” (Rom. 8:29–30).

We are God’s people. If you are proud and arrogant, this Lord must and will humble you. I counsel you to humble yourself, that God will lift you up, exalt you, and make you successful, in due time. The Bible says that God crowns the humble with the crown of salvation (Ps. 149:4); the crown of life (Jas. 1:12); the crown of righteousness (2 Tim. 4:8); and the crown of glory (1 Pet. 5:4).

Let us therefore shake off all misery and depression! Let us believe these three promises:

 

1. Submit to God, resist the devil, and he shall surely flee from us.
2. Draw near to God, and God shall surely draw near to us, to help us, bless us, guide us, strengthen us, heal us, shepherd us, and provide for us. He will draw near to us so we can die well in faith in Christ.
3. As we humble ourselves before the Lord, he shall surely lift us up. Even now, we are exalted in Jesus Christ, seated with God in the heavenly places.

 

 

May God help us to humble ourselves before him, that we may be saved and dwell with him forever.

¹ Elsewhere Peter says, “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Pet. 3:15).

² “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Col. 3:16).