What is Humility?

Often times people think of humility as thinking little of themselves. 

But that is not humility.

Satan tries to sell the lie, particularly to Christians, that to hate yourself is to be humble.

But no, humility is to never think of yourself either for good or bad.  Humility is to never cross your own mind at all if possible.  To have your mind focused on things other than yourself; on God, on others etc.  How can you build others up?  What can you do for someone else today? 

Satan wants to discourage us.  He wants us to hate ourselves because he hates us.  But that only ends up preventing us from helping others and renders us powerless, because we wallow in our own mud of self-pity.  That is where Satan wants us, stuck on ourselves. 

To hate oneself is to have higher expectations for oneself than one ought to.  We need to recognize that we are fallen, sinful beings and we cannot be perfect.  Hating oneself comes out of perfectionism.  We expect ourselves to be perfect and when we are not, we hate ourselves.  This is not from God but from Satan.  God does not expect you to be perfect, so stop expecting that of yourself. :)

God loves us and he tells us it is ok to love ourselves, in a healthy way.  He tells us it is ok to care for ourselves, because we cannot really love others until we learn to love ourselves.

Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as Yourself."  Therefore, we are supposed to love ourselves. 

If you hear negative thoughts in your head about yourself just know that that is Satan.  The Holy Spirit only wants to build us up and encourage us.  We cannot be effective for God if our focus is always on ourselves, think about it. 

We are supposed to deny ourselves but not to the point where we resent other people or God.  Because often times people may deny themselves and then flip to the other side and become even more selfish.  One can get caught into an all or nothing cycle.  This is how addictions are bred.  By saying no to anything and then you want everything.  But there should be a balance in everything.  Amen :)  This is how we can prevent ourselves from being mastered by anything. 

We cannot really take care of others unless we first take care of ourselves.  This practically means getting enough sleep, eating well, not letting yourself get stressed out by others etc. 

To love others out of obligation is not love.  That only causes one to resent what they give.  We need to love others because we genuinely care about them, because God has transformed our mind so that we really want what is best for them. :)

Humility is to think more highly of others, which does not mean putting ourselves down so that others can be lifted higher.  It is putting ourselves at an ok level and elevating others above that. 

It is a hard balance to be sure.  We do not want to be arrogant or conceited but we also don't want to hate ourselves.  We need to be in the middle. 

We need to recognize that we are God's creation and he has special plans for us, but we need to not let that go to our head. 

Stay in the middle and you will find humility. :)  "Do not think more highly of yourself than you ought to."  But don't think more lowly of yourself than you ought to either. 

You are God's dearly beloved child who he sent his son to die for.  But you are still a sinner and mess up everyday. 

Keep both perspectives in mind at all times.  Amen.

May God help us in this!  God bless :)