Even in God's Church it is possible to find many men and women who are very lacking in humility. Each year, at the Passover foot-washing service, we participate in the "ordinance of humility" and practice an outward sign of our inward humility. But how many of us, throughout the rest of the year, genuinely meet the test of true humility? It is vital that we each consider this point.
True humility is not just an outward appearance before our fellow human beings. It is a totally sincere inner state of mind—a basic attitude.
If you saw a man who was "hot" with anger and who literally smashed two precious objects that God Himself had directly fashioned, you might easily assume that this man totally lacked humility and the fear of God. Yet, that is exactly what Moses did when he came down from the Mountain of God with the Ten Commandments. "So it was, as soon as he came near the camp, that he saw the calf and the dancing. So Moses' anger became hot, and he cast the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain" (Exodus 32:19).
If you were one of the Israelites at that time, all you would have seen was Moses' act of heated anger. You would not have known that this man, Moses, had just finished rejecting an offer from God to destroy these rebellious Israelites and to make of himself a great nation (vv. 9–14). You would probably not know that the Creator God gave this description of the man who smashed the tablets: "Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth." (Numbers 12:3). Was Moses perfect? No. Did God greatly honor him despite his faults, and appreciate him in ways his fellow Israelites did not? Yes!
Notice how Moses later described that memorable scene from his own meek perspective: "Then I took the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. And I fell down before the Lord, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the Lord was angry with you, to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me at that time also. And the Lord was very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him; so I prayed for Aaron also at the same time" (Deuteronomy 9:17–20).
Still later, Moses recounted how he again interceded with God to spare Israel punishment for its continual rebellion: "Thus I prostrated myself before the Lord; forty days and forty nights I kept prostrating myself, because the Lord had said He would destroy you" (Deuteronomy 9:25). You see, Moses' fellow Israelites did not see him falling on his face before God, over and over, on their behalf. Even if they had, they were so filled with "self" that they would not have fully appreciated either his actions or his motives.
All of us must meditate on David's thoughtful words: "When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?" (Psalm 8:3–4). Truly, brethren, all of us put together have practically no physical or mental power compared to our Creator. As our Father in heaven reminds us: "'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,' says the Lord. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts'" (Isaiah 55:8–9).
Yet how quickly even many of us come up with "our" opinion and "our" judgment of this or that—sometimes in direct conflict with the inspired revelation of the Great God whose massive intellect is unfathomable to our puny minds! All of us need to become more truly humble, yielded and teachable before God. All of us need to pray fervently that God would make us more sensitive to His will in contrast to our own wishes and desires.
If each of us concentrates on being a genuine "bondslave" of Jesus Christ—letting Him use us as "tools" in His hands—then we will practically never get our own feelings hurt, and practically never have a feeling of envy or resentment that someone else got a position or blessing that we coveted. For we will want God's will to be done. We will grow in the realization that He really does know what is best for us even if our human impulses at the moment tell us otherwise.
This attitude will help us take correction from God—and from His called and chosen ministers. We will really believe what the writer of Hebrews tells us: "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives" (Hebrews 12:5– 6). So, when we are corrected in a sermon, we will take it to heart and pray about it—feeling that the correction is from God! Even if "Mr. So and So" is not our "favorite" minister, we will know that he is in an office—and that God will guide and use that office of the ministry to speak to us unless the man in that office turns completely away from God. In that case, God will remove him, or will make it clear that we should go elsewhere.
But a truly humble person is not looking for reasons to be offended or to leave the Church that is primarily doing God's Work. Even if human mistakes are occasionally made—and there will always be human mistakes while we are still in the flesh—a genuinely humble and converted individual will try to learn even from imperfect teachers and imperfect situations.
For the deeply converted person will always be "teachable" and willing to learn from every situation. This is the attitude God wants to see in all of us: "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'" (Isaiah 57:15).
The Apostle John was inspired to show us how this attitude is to affect our human relations as well. "If someone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also" (1 John 4:20–21). And: "By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth" (1 John 3:16–18).
Brethren, we need to reflect on the awesome humility of Jesus Christ Himself (Philippians 2:5–9). Just as Christ was willing to wash His disciples' feet, God is eager to cleanse us of all vanity, selfishness and stubbornness– if only we will turn to Him and beseech Him to do so.
As John instructed, let us "lay down our lives" for one another in the Church—and in the Work of getting Christ's message to the untold millions who desperately need what we have to give! In heartfelt humility and out-flowing concern, let us emulate the Apostle Paul who said: "For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more… To the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some" (1 Corinthians 9:19, 22).
Dear brethren, let us so live our lives now that God who knows our hearts will see that we truly intend to serve Him, honor Him and obey Him throughout all eternity—no matter what the cost. Through our thoughts, prayers, words and actions we must let God and our fellow men know that we are here to serve. We must be "givers"—not merely "takers"—who can heartily wish, with the Apostle Paul, that "according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:20–21).