You cannot Serve without Humility:

I have been doing a lot of reading of books by Christian authors recently for my daily devotional.  The first was “Future Grace” by John Piper and then the second one is “Cross-Cultural Servanthood,” by Duane Elmer.  These are very different books with very different goals and objectives of teaching.  The first one is all about a person’s personal walk with God and their faith in future grace.  Then the second one is all about being willing to serve God by making sure to not overstep culturally while serving others in the world.  

However, even with these two very different books, there was a very big theme that came into both of them which was the term of humility.  Humility is fundamental for serving God and for being a Christian.  It can be very easy to call ourselves a servant, but it is important that we truly understand what it means to be a servant and how humility plays a huge role.  Both books brought up the importance of humility, even in a world where humility is not necessarily praised.  I want to highlight two very striking quotations about humility from each of these books.  

In the book, “Future Grace,” on page 85 it states, “But deeper than all these forms of unbelief is the unbelief of pride, because self-determination and self-exaltation lie behind all these other sinful dispositions.”  This was right after Piper brought up all the sins that many people struggle with, such as covetousness, bitterness, impatience, and total lack of belief.  Even though those sins are all bad, they really are all behind pride.  This is given more explanation when it later says, “Turning from God assumes that one knows better than God.”  When someone turns from God in some kind of sinful way and for something else, it is almost because we don’t necessarily believe in God’s sovereignty.  

The Bible gives a lot of warning against pride.  There are at least 153 verses that are in the Bible against pride, and there are many others that highlight the importance of humility.  One verse I want to highlight is James 4:10, and this says, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”  The Lord loves when his servants are humble and because of this, these very humble servants will be exalted.  This verse is also a reminder that one’s salvation is based completely on one’s humility which makes sense because without humility, we wouldn’t be able to depend on God.  If we are prideful, then we may believe we can live without Him.  We can believe we are going to be saved on our merits as opposed to the Lord, the heavenly father.  

Learning humility as an essential piece of salvation is important for the ability to serve others and reach others with God’s word. In cross-cultural servanthood, there is such a highlight of humility.  Humility is so important for mission work, and this book really does a really good job reminding anyone who wants to work in missions that it is the main virtue.  This is especially when we are going cross-cultural.  

One verse in this book comes from page 31 which says“Pride has no place in our lives; everything we have is by God’s kindness.”  We don’t have anything without God.  We don’t have any virtues without God’s work in our lives.  It can be really easy to gain pride and base all of our successes in our lives on that pride.  However, one problem with this is that then we can obviously start to look at people as projects and goals as opposed to just looking to serve the only God who is completely perfect. I know there are many times I have been guilty of this.  I have looked at the areas where I have served and used that to really feel good about myself as opposed to thinking how that service was good for God’s kingdom.    

This being said, we need to be willing to practice humility in all areas of our lives.  This means being willing to listen and to learn from others.  We don’t know everything, even if we really think there is a topic where we are experts, there are many things we can still learn.  It can be very easy in one culture to assume that we know best for others, especially when they do something different based on culture, when in reality their culture could provide a whole different insight to us.  Having the humility to listen, learn, and understand in missions, our work, and with our relationship with God will deepen every aspect of this walk.  My challenge for you this week is to pray for humility and an opportunity to serve others with complete humility.