Humility vs Pride

Matthew 11:28-30
"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

I get the sense ahead of time that I will be seriously convicted by this study. I know that I have fallen far short of the quality of true humility found only in Christ. I believe that false humility (true arrogance) is far to prevalent and deceptive and many naive Christians who follow do not know which one they see when they look at those who claim to be "a minister", "in ministry", or even "a servant of the Lord" in this age.

If we are to contrast humility and pride, I believe we need to see the good quality of humility in the best form possible and of course this is in Christ Jesus Himself. It is said that bankers or bank tellers are taught first to study long and recognize the genuine dollar so much so that they will know a counterfeit when they see it. The more they study the genuine the less they will be fooled even when the fake is so very close in appearance.

As we all know, the "real" value of a counterfeit dollar bill is worthless. It has no real authority from the managing government to back it in its "apparent" value for monetary or material exchange. Only those who have been fooled by it may temporarily grant the fake some authority in their minds only so that it may take something valuable from them in exchange. And consequentially they are left with a loss.

How we describe true humility is how we describe Jesus at His Heart. He said of himself "I am gentle and lowly in heart". Getting back to the need for us to study the genuine, we see this quality of humility is something "in heart" and not just "in appearance" . Who "alone" knows the heart of a man thoroughly and without being fooled by a residing sinful nature?

Jer. 17:9-10
"The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
I, the Lord, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit of his doings.

And it was said of Jesus when He was dwelling in His human form on the earth that He "knew their thoughts". The specific thoughts of the Pharisees as in Luke 6:8 and Mt 12:25 were known by Christ. And John 2:24-25 says:
But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.

1 Cor 2:11 says "For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?.." And Paul said of himself in 1 Cor 4:4, "For I know nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who judges me is the Lord."

In a sense we know our own heart but not without some trouble due to the sinful nature that "all" of us Christians have until death or ascension through our final physical transformation.
As the Scriptures declare people can sear or reject their conscience (1 Tim 1:19, 4:2) , harden their heart (1 Sam 6:5), have a defiled mind and conscience (Titus 1:15) and the list of our inherent imperfections go on. Though the bondage of sins power is broken when we are saved through Christ’s death, we will continually need to be renewed in our minds as we are transformed by the Power that raised Christ from the dead. If we dare say we are without sin we may unknowingly be committing the sin that the Pharisees were deceived by as stated in John 9:40-41
Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, "Are we blind also?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.

1 Jn 1:8
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

In other words as Prov. 20:9 says:
Who can say, "I have made my heart clean,
I am pure from my sin"?

The only one that was (and is) in human form without any trace of sin is the incarnate Deity Christ Jesus who is the only Lord and Savior of man and the God of all Existence . He alone has a perfectly clean and pure Heart and Mind. He alone possesses true and undefiled humility. How is this that the One who is the Most Highly Exalted over all and the Creator of all and everything possesses perfect humility? No arrogance or foolish pride ever dwelt or could dwell in the Being of God. He has all Power and Authority and does not need to fight or deceive to keep it. The Scriptures declare that
With Him are strength and prudence.
The deceived and the deceiver are His (Job 12:16).

After seeing this we should realize that one reason why Christ has perfect humility is that His Place can never be and will never be taken by another.
Is 14:12-15
"How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who weakened the nations!
For you have said in your heart:
‘I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mount of the congregation
On the farthest sides of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the Most High.’
Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
To the lowest depths of the Pit.

Jesus witnessed this casting down of Lucifer from Heaven as He said in Luke 10:17, And He said to them, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

The Most High was not at all threatened by Lucifer but He was offended by this creature's pride.
If Lucifer was considered the most beautiful and a very powerfully created archangel of all the highest Heaven and then lost this position through sin, he now strongly desires to inflict others with this pride that destroyed him.

In contrast to the humility of Christ we could see that God’s created beings (including you and me) have been influenced and deceived by Satan through our fallen nature to some degree by pride. One can subdue most of their sinful urges for things of the flesh by getting so used to being watched by others and may (by hypocritical practice) appear to others to be very holy as it was with the Pharisees. But in the heart, which Christ witnesses from Heaven, there is dwelling great and deceptive pride that "only" God sees and knows. A person who appears to be holy to others, who may actually interact with others seeing and hearing them, who may be highly respected in their eyes, often can be so full of self and pride while they put on the airs of being something else for God. This is the worst form of hypocrisy with pride. I’ll end for now as by giving a warning to all of us. May we all be very prayerful and careful that we are not one of these hypocritical people or that you are not fooled by one of them.

Christ alone deserves all of the glory for true humility for He alone can supply it as He alone is the Vine. Even this is not of our works lest anyone should boast.

Please take this with the concern for our souls as was intended.

In Christ Alone,
Denny

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