Humility

I have wanted to write about the humility of our Father, but I haven't quite known the meaning of the quality of humility. I don't think we can know it, until the circumstances of life have brought us to the condition and experience of humility. We think we know how to be humble, and scripture tells us to have the quality of humility, but I don't think we truly know what it is.
The dictionary defines humility as "a way of behaving that shows that you do not think that you are better or more important than other people". Another definition is "the quality of having a modest or low view of one's importance." It comes from the Latin word humilitatem meaning "lowness, insignificance".
1 Peter 5:5-6 says in part,
"...Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for
'God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble'.
Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, 
that He may exalt you in due time." 
The word humility used here means "a sense of one's littleness", from a root word which means "not rising from the ground, lowly in spirit, humble."

The Proverbs tell us repeatedly the rewards of humility:
"By humility and fear of the LORD are riches and honor and life."

"The fear of the LORD is the instruction of wisdom, and before honor is humility."

"Before destruction the heart of a man is haughty, and before honor is humility."
                                                                        Proverbs 22:4, 15:33, 18:12 

Those who are entrusted with honor, are those who have the quality of humility first. In man's heart is the desire for honor and acknowledgement, the desire for eminence and respect from our fellow man. This is the exact opposite of humility. Jesus said that it was those who humbled themselves that would be the ones to be exalted (Mt.23:12). He also said as the disciples debated who was greatest among themselves, that the greater one is the one who serves, not the one who rules. He told them that He, Himself, was among them as One who serves (Lk. 22:26-27). Jesus turned down worldy kingdoms offered to Him, in order to be a servant of His Father (Mt. 4:8-10). And as we know, Jesus did as the Father showed Him to do. So if Jesus came as a servant, that same servanthood exists in the Father.


Humility is also essential in prayer before the LORD:
"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 I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land."                      2 Chron. 7:14

Being humble is the first requirement in the verse above. It is of the first importance.
This same quality in prayer is repeated in other scriptures:

"Because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and against its inhabitants, and you humbled yourself before Me, and you tore your clothes and wept before Me, I also have heard you, says the LORD."
(Spoken by the LORD through the prophetess Huldah to King Josiah.)  
                                                          2 Chron. 34:27

"LORD, You have heard the desire of the humble;
You will prepare their heart;
You will cause Your ear to hear."
                                                          Psalm 10:17 

The highest realms of the Kingdom of God are inhabited by the humble, and the Father inhabits that place with them. The greatest spiritual heights, the most exalted of the holies, the place where the Father lives, is the place of humility. He fills it, and it surrounds Him, and in that place of humility where He dwells, revival is found:

"For thus says the high and Lofty One
Who inhabits eternity,
Whose name is holy:
I dwell in the high and holy place,
with him who has a contrite and humble spirit,
to revive the spirit of the humble,
and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."
                                                       Isa. 57:15   

To "revive" above means to be delivered from sickness and discouragement, from faintness and death. It means to restore and preserve. It is a place of revelation, breath, and life. To inhabit that place, to be with Him, we must be like Him. 

Luke 21:1-3 (Fran's Amplified Version)

“And Jesus, the Son of Man, the Savior, received sight, beheld, took heed of and discerned with His Spirit Eye, the rich men (the wealthy, the abundantly supplied, the ones to be completed and filled with the Holy Ghost) casting (throwing, casting out, letting go of)  their gifts (what’s supposed to be the expressions of honor for God, their supposed sacrificial offerings) without even caring where it fell or to what purpose it would be used for) into the treasury (into the place where the treasures are all kept, the special rooms in the court of the temple – the peculiar places of the Body – where all that’s needed for service is kept and where the priests of God themselves live – the place where they themselves are as a tribe, the nation of trumpets, the watched over ones).  And He also saw a certain poor  (needy person, one who toils daily for their substance, who is the image of the great gulf, the chasm fixed between those who are needy of things and of flesh and those who are needy of the Spirit of God the Redeemer in their own spirits/hearts) cast in two mites (the two, the witness of their being stripped, peeled and scaled back like a stripped husk from all the outer, meaningless, natural, temporal things; and He declared, decreed, spoke the Word over the fact that, that stripped down, humbled person, had thrown in more (a greater and more superior quality, a more excellent part as offering unto God the Father) than all the rest of them.”

The above verses are the result of Scripture study by a friend. What she discovered in the familiar verses about the widow who gave the two mites, is not just a lesson on giving, although it is that also. It is a picture of the value of a humbled individual in the eyes of God. This is an individual who has had the circumstances of her life peel away from her all pride. She lived through things that removed all the outer false glory and temporary beauty of man's self-importance. To the others giving that day, she must have seemed of no importance, her gift too small for notice. But as Jesus looked at her with the eyes of the Spirit, He saw that, in her humility, she and her gift were the greatest of them all.

Would we allow the LORD to peel back our pride through difficult lessons and circumstances? Or would we do everything in our faith and power, to escape from that peeling and scraping away? Would we, having had all things taken from us, still be willing to give the pittance we had left, because we had gained a humble, worshipping heart before God? Would we be willing to give up other people's esteem and good opinion, as we were (seemingly) diminished in their sight? If we lost all of the temporary comforts and ease of the world, would we become humble, or bitter?

Will we welcome the process of becoming humble before God and man?

                                                      

Our Father is humility.


"Humble Thyself in the Sight of the LORD"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZqv7ww-UJk