Humble or Proud?

     Yesterday I went to Mardel’s to get some stuff for the mission trip next week.  When I walked in, a bracelet and necklace grabbed my attention on the way to the crayons. I have never been able to use this excuse before for buying jewelry but this jewelry is going to help me with my spiritual growth. Dwayne can’t say anything about that excuse! lol The reason I get to claim this excuse is because it is a virtue bracelet and necklace. They each have seven colored glass beads with a cross. Each color represents a virtue to remind me each day to be a virtuous woman. The seven virtues are humility, purity, charity, patience, kindness, diligence, and compassion. To help understand deeper the meaning of my bracelet I am going to write about these virtues this week. Today, I am going to cover humility.
     How often do you hear or say these words, “I don’t deserve that”, “let me tell you what I did”, “I will show them”, “If they treat me like that then I will….” “Who do you think you are” or “I worked hard for what I got”. I wish greatly that I could say that none of those words has ever come across my lips, but I would be lying. I want to consider myself a humble person but when I look into the meaning, I sometimes come up short.
     Humility is described as a quality, character, or virtue.
It is:
• being modest
• reverential
• politely submissive
• egolessness
It is Not:
• arrogant
• contemptuous
• rude
• prideful
• self-abasing
     Humility is defined as: "A quality by which a person considering his own defects has a humble opinion of himself and willingly submits himself to God and to others for God's sake". True humility is distinctly different from false humility, which consists of deprecating one's own sanctity, gifts, talents, and accomplishments for the sake of receiving praise or adulation from others. In this context legitimate humility comprises the following behaviors and attitudes:
1. Submitting to God and legitimate authority
2. Recognizing virtues and talents that others possess, particularly those that surpass one's own, and giving due honor and, when required, obedience
3. Recognizing the limits of one's talents, ability, or authority, and not reaching for what is beyond one's grasp
     That is some pretty hefty standards but scripture tells us that the benefits of humility are honor, wisdom, eternal life, unity, and rewards in heaven. Scripture also tells us in Proverbs, 1 Peter, and James, that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. If we look at the definitions above it is easy to see why. If we are not humble we are not submitting to God’s authority. Jesus was the ultimate example of humility. He is God, yet, He submitted to the authority in this world and allowed man to hang him on a cross. It always bewilders me that I struggle with the smallest submission issues but yet Jesus was not too good to summit to the will of God, even to death. If submission isn’t beneath Jesus, why should it be beneath me?

. . .who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously;

1 Peter 2:23