February 23
Revere God and Fear Him – Part II
“So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Philippians 2:12-13
This memorable verse from Paul comes immediately on the heels of explaining Jesus’ humility, how He humbled Himself to become a man and to subject Himself to death, “even death on a cross.” Paul explains how this humility and obedience of Jesus will result in every knee bowing to Him and confessing Him as Lord. And this example of the humility of Jesus is key to our obedience.
Isn’t our pride and presumptuousness the root of all of our sin? Isn’t it the attitude of “I deserve this or that” the reason we get angry and treat others harshly? Aren’t the times when we quench the Spirit and refuse to listen to what we know the Lord is leading us to do or not do a direct result of our pride and desire to be masters of our own lives and to be in control of our own lives, to do what pleases us and what feels good to us at the time?
Jesus, because of His humility, resisted every temptation to do what would feel good to Him and give Him pleasure at the time. I believe He faced daily and most intensely at the cross a continual choice to take the easy way out, to indulge a pleasure, to have a soft life, to avoid confrontation, to avoid problems, to avoid hard work, to avoid pain. I believe His daily denial of Himself and His own needs, His intentional choice of what was painful and exceedingly difficult, was a direct result of His humility. His constant obedience to the Father’s will was due to His humility. If He has succumbed to the temptation to reject His Father’s will, even once, had He decided the comfortable, pleasurable, or easy way was better, we wouldn’t be having this discussion today, and we would all be dead and lost in our sins.
Humility, then, is a key, key part of living obedient Christian lives and walking in the fear of the Lord. But how do I get humility? I have heard people close to me tell me that I am a very proud individual. Ouch! How can I overcome this sin of pride, which in turn leads to so many other sins? How can we attain to the humility and subsequently the obedience of Christ?
One key, of course, is prayer. We need to ask God daily and regularly for humility. Ask Him to help us to see our weaknesses, our inability, and our sins as He sees them. Ask His help to see His grandeur and majesty and love and greatness as it really is. When we see ourselves as we truly are, in all our pride and selfishness and disobedience to His word, and when we see Him as He truly is, in all His purity and holiness and humility, then we will begin to humbly learn the fear of the Lord. When we see our sins as they truly are, ugly and rotten to the core, when we see how our best self-efforts made apart from the working of the Spirit are empty and presumptuous, we will learn humility. When we begin to see Him as the only source of righteousness and goodness and victory and success, we will learn to humbly serve Him. But I believe God has to reveal this to us, and I believe we need to earnestly seek humility and the fear of the Lord, especially those of us who in our pride are accustomed to doing things our way and having what we want when we want it. We are spoiled children, many of us, and we need His grace to unlearn these presumptuous, proud habits we have walked in for many years. More on this tomorrow.