Why Humility is First (Matt. 5:3)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/28/2020 10:17 AM

My Worship Time                                                                         Focus:  “Why Humility is First”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Matthew 5:3

            Message of the verses:  “3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

            Humility is first in line of these beatitudes because without it one cannot be saved:  “1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, "Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" 2 And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, 3 and said, "Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 “Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 “And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; 6  but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” The highlighted verses are the ones that I want you to look at in detail, but I put the others here to help understand the entire story.

            Pride has absolutely no part in Christ’s kingdom, and so until a person surrenders pride he cannot enter the kingdom.  Those, like the Pharisees who though that they could enter the kingdom of God all by themselves will not make it there.  I am going to quote all of the times you find the word pride in the book of Proverbs, and surprisingly it is a short list:

“Pr 8:13 “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverted mouth, I hate.

 Pr 11:2 When pride comes, then comes dishonor, But with the humble is wisdom.

Pr 16:18 Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.

Pr 21:24 “Proud," "Haughty," "Scoffer," are his names, Who acts with insolent pride.

Pr 29:23 A man’s pride will bring him low, But a humble spirit will obtain honor.”

            John MacArthur writes “The door into His kingdom is low, and no one who stands tall will ever go through it.  We cannot be filled until we are empty; we cannot be made worthy until we recognize our unworthiness; we cannot live until we admit we are dead.  We might as well expect fruit to grow without a tree as to expect the other graces of the Christian life to grow without humility.  We cannot begin the Christian life without humility, and we cannot live the Christian life with pride.”  Last week I was watching a question and answer “sermon type” from John MacArthur’s church and I don’t remember what the question was about but I do remember him saying that humility was still something that he is learning, and I suppose that did offer me some hope. 

            For those of you who have been reading some of my Spiritual Diaries you know that my desire is to learn more about humility and to live my life through the power of the Holy Spirit as He continue to teach me humility.  I don’t think that this is the case in many churches today as they don’t teach humility.  While talking to my Pastor about this he gave me a little booklet about humility and perhaps in the future I will quote from that book at the end of my Spiritual Diary.  I have read most all of it and it is one of those books that steps on my spiritual toes.

            MacArthur goes on to write “Until a soul is humbled, until the inner person is ‘poor in spirit,’ Christ can never become dear, because He is obscured by self.  Until one sees how doomed he is, he cannot see what a Redeemer that Lord is.  Until one sees his own poverty he cannot see God’s riches.  Only when one admits to his own deadness can Christ give him His life.  ‘Everyone who is proud in heart is an admonition to the Lord’ Pr. 16:5).”

            We studied the book of Revelation a few years back and as we looked at the different churches in chapters 2-3 we saw a downfall in five of the churches, a downfall spiritually beginning with the loss of their love for Christ in the Ephesian church and then ending up with a church that would not even let Christ in.  Here is the problem with that church as Jesus writes to them saying in 3:17 “’Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked” Now I want to quote from what Jesus said to the church in Smyrna, the suffering church whom Christ had nothing bad to say about them.  He states “9 ’I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich),” (Rev. 2:9b).  Financially they were poor, but spiritual they were rich because they were a humble church.

            We will conclude by quoting the last paragraph from MacArthur’s commentary on this sub-section we are looking at today:  “Where self is exalted, Christ cannot be.  Where self is king, Christ cannot be.  Until the proud in spirit become ‘poor in spirit,’ they cannot receive the King or inherit His kingdom.”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I think that it is pretty obvious that for the rest of my days on planet earth that I will need to remember to learn humility.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  It is my desire to learn contentment, humility, and to have joy in my heart when I study His Word even though at times His Word steps on my spiritual toes.

3/28/2020 11:26 AM