Luke 18:14 —”Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
In today’s world, especially in the corporate world, we hear the idioms ‘blow your own trumpet’ and ‘the crying baby gets the milk’. Both these phrases are used to encourage people on how to behave to “grow”. Let’s look at this deeper:
‘Blow your own trumpet’ – the secular world encourages us to sing our own praises for things we have accomplished. Hmm… interesting. And, what does the Bible say? If we work like we are working for God than working for man, we will be blessed. We don’t need to blow trumpets or anything else. If God is on our side, the rest doesn’t matter. (If God be for us, who can be against us?)
Same goes for ‘the crying baby gets the milk’ – we need not air our concerns just for the sake of being heard. If we work well as to God and not man, God will give us favor among the people and our concerns will be enquired of us.
Are we digressing from the scripture for today? How does this all tie in?
Today, we are all in a race. There is the world’s rat race to be the wealthiest and there is the race that we run on God’s timeline for us to see eternity with Him. Depending on which path we have chosen or which end line we see, we behave and live accordingly. If we want to be in God’s kingdom in the ever after, we need to follow what the Bible prescribes in all areas of our life – humility. Even leadership is taught in the Bible through humility; Jesus being the main example – He came to serve and not to be served. Jesus said “suffer little children to come unto me for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.” Children are born humble and are that way till they are aware/made aware of competition and ‘things’ of life. If we stick to being humble, God will provide the situations and the appropriate people at the right time to make us rise coz He has promised “he who humbles himself will be exalted”. But if we think something on the lines below, we are setting ourselves up for a fall:
– my years of work experience and skills have brought me thus far and I will grow if I keep at this
-‘I can go to any university or place because I have my wealth and resources’ or
– ‘I don’t have to look at my books and I can fair very well in my exams because this subject is too easy’.
We must always be aware that whatever we have, is given to us by God’s grace. Talents, skills, abilities, wealth, property, relationship with God and others. If we remember this, it is difficult for us to boast, for us to think anything is ours, including our earthly body. It is a good way to stay grounded to think that all we have is leased to us by God for the duration of our life on earth. Now can we have the same attitude of ‘we have it all’, ‘I am a self-made person’? Think about it for a moment – You have it all leased out by God – are you now able to stand tall like the pharisee who exalted himself in Luke 18? “I have this and I gave this…”. No. It is all God’s. God has leased everything to you, His child, free of cost. Jesus paid the price for it all.
(Luke 18:11- “I thank you that I am not like other men.”) And with the same thought of God as lessor, can we with an honest heart open our mouth to judge another when we have nothing and have it all leased out by God? Stay humble and praise God our lessor, every chance you get, for all that He keeps doing for you. We are nothing without Him.
