Another reason humility is so hard to write on is because it is a spiritual issue and many seem to think of it in the physical or natural realm. To speak of humility is to speak of humility in the soul and even in the deepest part of the soul. But the pride of human beings is so great that they are blinded to their pride by their pride and so it is not inconsistent with the greatest amount or control of pride to think of one as humble. A proud heart wants to think of itself as humble and will fight to think of itself as humble. As the self-righteous soul wants to constantly justify its sin to others and to self, so the proud soul wants to justify itself as humble. In other words, those who read this may enter into a spiritual war. The devil wants to keep people proudly humble (so to speak). An oxymoron can occasionally be put to good use. The Pharisees give us an example of those who were proudly humble. They would mess up their hair and try to look bad in order to make it appear that they were suffering as they were fasting. To make a bad pun, they were being quick (fast) to the appearance of humility in order to bolster their spiritual pride.
What anyone must see if they truly desire true humility that this is a spiritual issue that is far beyond the strength of the natural man. Our pride wants to blind us to this and then deceive us to think that we have become humble while we are still in the grip of our pride. But Jesus Christ will work this in His people so if you know that you desire true humility, seek it from Him rather than your own works. It takes prayer and submission to Him to show you your pride and then it takes His grace in order for you to die to your pride in that particular issue. There will be times when your heart will scream (and perhaps your lips) when you think that He has pushed you beyond what you can handle. When you arrive at that point, and He will assuredly bring you to that point, try to remember that He is doing that out of kindness to you. If you were not pushed to the point of not being able to handle something, then you would have no need to know what humility really is and know what it means to live by grace. In His great mercy He teaches us and trains us by bringing things to us that are far too hard for us to handle in our pseudo-humility and spirituality lite. We may be able to recall and quote verses like “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13), but until that is what He has taught us in our hearts we have no real idea of what it means. Humility is not something learned about; it is something that is learned in the heat of trials brought from the Divine hand to give us what is truly best.
Still another reason why it is hard to write on humility is because of its link with so many other issues of the heart. It is not necessary to delineate all of these and make many distinctions at this point, but humility is inseparable from many other things of the heart. We cannot speak of true mortification of sin, dying to self, contrition for sin, humiliation of the soul, and things like that without going through humility. Yet when those things are brought into the picture, the soul begins to have great fear and wants to flee. As the body flees from things that will harm or kill it, so pride should be viewed as having a life of its own and it does not want to die. This pride will plead with you to spare it and it will hide behind many rational arguments. This pride wants to be spared and like a chameleon it will take on the colors and dress of many things. While the Beatitudes speak of the merciful being blessed because they will be shown mercy, yet in this case you must show your pride no mercy at all.
Jesus’ command reaches the soul when He tells us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and then to follow Him. This is repeated several times in Scripture. But why does He tell us to deny ourselves before He tells us to take up our cross and follow Him? It is because the flesh and the pride do not want to do anything that will harm the flesh or the pride. The issue of following Christ is first and foremost a battle with self. Self does not want to pick up that cross and self does not want to suffer. Self does not want to be mocked and made fun of. Our pride is so great we want to do anything but suffer in our soul. However, there will be many who will say “Lord, Lord” and yet will be told to depart from Him because we practice lawlessness (Mat 7). If we do not deny self, we will have chosen self over Him and so will be in disobedience to His command. The issue of humility, then, is not just a matter of adding a little virtue, but also a matter of salvation and of walking by grace. If we try to deny self by the strength of self, we will also live by self since self will not have been denied. We must die to self or we will never die to pride. When we cast out self by self we will pick up a cross of our own choosing rather than the cross Jesus commands us to take. We must die to self and be emptied of our pride so that we will take up the cross of His choosing and live by the grace He chooses. Humility is not an easy issue at all, but it is a battle to the death of self. This requires humility because this death to self can only be accomplished in us by God. This may sound like a great mystery, and perhaps it is, but this is one of those things that you have to do to learn it.
God Loves... Himself 
Leave a comment