Theme of the Week: Learning Humility
Bible Verse: “Acknowledge that the Lord is God. He made us, and we are his — his people, the sheep of his pasture.” Psalm 100:3 CSB
Scripture Reading: Mark 11:1-10
Pride is thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think (Romans 12:3). However, humility is not thinking less of ourselves than we ought to think, but simply thinking of ourselves less.
We are to think of ourselves with “sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned” (Romans 12:3). In other words, the humble person knows who he is and whose he is. This is the secret to Jesus’s remarkable humility. Even as a child, Jesus was about his Father’s business. People always questioned his identity, but he was not thrown off by their doubt or criticism (Mark 8:27–30).
When the crowds were flocking to Jesus, he withdrew to pray. He did not need the approval of people because he was rooted in the words that came down from heaven: “You are my beloved Son; with you, I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). Without any hubris, Jesus could say, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Without self-concern, Jesus could say, “The Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death” (Mark 10:33).
This is not to say that any of this was easy. Jesus was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). The point is that he was able to endure such difficulty because of his sense of identity and purpose. In the same way, people like Abraham and Moses “died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13).
In contrast to pride and fear, the humility we see in Jesus is marked by dependence and confidence. If we aspire to walk in this path, we will have to think with sober judgment. We will have to be clear-eyed about who we are and whose we are. Where do we get this kind of clarity? The gospel tells us who we are: We are made in the image of God, created in his likeness for his glory. This truth speaks to both our dignity and our dependence. Before and after the fall, people need God in every aspect of life, “for ‘in him we live and move and have our being'” (Acts 17:28). The gospel tells us whose we are: We belong to God, body and soul. He is our Maker, to whom we belong by virtue of design. He is our Father, to whom we belong by means of adoption. He is our Master, and we are his servants. He is our king, and we are his subjects. Nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).
Taken from Journey to the Cross: Devotions for Lent, by Will Walker and Kendal Haug, ©2017.
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