OUR NEED TO BE HUMBLED

 

Humbling is always painful. Humbling shows us that we aren't the good and sufficient people we want to be.

However, we need the humbling. As I am humbled, I marvel, all the more, at my Savior who loves me and provides for me despite my unworthiness.

The Apostle Peter was also humbled. He had denied the Lord three times. The Lord appeared to him a third time by the Sea of Galilee as they were fishing and miraculously filled their net with 153 fish. After eating, He asked Peter three times if he loved Him. This disturbed Peter, probably because it reminded him of his humbling threefold denial of Jesus.

Peter was humbled, and humility was a necessary ingredient for his glorious calling - "Feed My sheep." Humility would reach down to the most undeserving as humility has led Jesus to be born into the most humbling of circumstances, in a manure infested animal cave and dressed with burial swaddling cloths.

It had been humility that had led Him to be put to death by His enemies in the most humiliating and painful manner to prove His love for us.

However, humility invites dying - even martyrdom, as our Lord had promised Peter:

• “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go." (This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.) And after saying this he said to him, "Follow me." (John 21:18-19; ESV)

I want to follow Him, but I have learned that I do not have what it takes, but my Lord does. If He can grow His most fragrant roses with manure, He can use us!