A spiritual person will always be ready
to humble himself. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
If we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, He will exalt us at
the proper time (1Pet.5:5,6). To be exalted does not mean that we become
great men in this world or in Christendom and get the honor of men. It
refers to spiritual exaltation, where we are given spiritual authority
to fulfill all the will of God in our life and ministry. But such
exaltation depends on our humbling ourselves.
To humble ourselves under God's mighty
hand means to accept joyfully all the circumstances that God sends into
our lives. We allow those circumstances to humble us, so that we become
smaller and God becomes greater. When we become smaller in people's
eyes, then they won't live in dependence on us, but on the Lord.
Humbling ourselves involves apologizing to all whom we've wronged. As
servants of the Lord, we are to be servants of all people and must be
willing to go under all of them to bless them. When we make mistakes, we
must be quick to acknowledge them and to apologize where necessary. The
only one who never makes a mistake is God.
Henry Suso was a man of God who lived in
Germany, a few hundred years ago. He was a saintly man and a bachelor.
He prayed often that the Lord would make him broken and humble like
Jesus Himself was. This was how God answered his prayer. One day Suso
heard a knock at his door. When he opened the door, he saw a strange
woman standing there with a baby in her arms. He had never seen her
before. She was an evil woman who was wanting to get rid of her newborn
baby and decided that the best man to dump it on was Henry Suso. So she
told him, in a voice loud enough for everyone in the street to hear,
"Here is the fruit of your sin", and left the baby in Suso's arms and
walked off. Suso was stunned. His reputation in the town had been
shattered in a moment. He took the baby inside, knelt down and told the
Lord, "Lord, you know I'm innocent. What must I do now?" The Lord
replied, "Do what I did. Suffer for the sins of others". Suso accepted
the word of the Lord and never justified himself before anyone. He
brought up that child as his own. He was content that God knew the truth
and he was willing for everyone else to misunderstand him.
Many years later, the woman was convicted
of her sin and came back to Suso's house and proclaimed to all the
neighbors that Suso was innocent and that she had told a lie. But what
had happened in the intervening years? Henry Suso's prayer had been
answered. He had become broken and humble like his Master. God had been
able to accomplish a work of sanctification in Suso's life, freeing him
from man's opinion's so that God's opinion alone mattered to him
thereafter.
Are we willing to pay such a price in
order to become like Jesus? Or do we still seek the honor of men? God
breaks us by allowing us to be misunderstood, misjudged, falsely accused
and publicly humiliated. In all such circumstances, we must refuse to
see the men who are harassing us. They may be our brothers or our
enemies. It doesn't matter. Behind the hand of every Judas Iscariot, is
our heavenly Father giving us a cup to drink. If we see the Father's
hand in such situations, we'll drink the cup joyfully, however bitter
and painful it may be. But if we see only Judas, then we'll take out our
sword (as Peter did) and cut off people's ears (or their reputations) or
whatever. When we are attacked or falsely accused, God wants us to
humble ourselves under His mighty hand. It's easy to do that once we see
that it is God's hand there, and not man's.
It is best to leave all matters with God.
He knows what He is doing and He's got everything under His control.
He's chiseling away at the rock to sculpture the likeness of Jesus in
us. Some parts of the rock are very hard and He has to use false
accusations and persecution to chisel out those parts. If we submit to
His chiseling, we'll come forth in the end as Christlike men with
spiritual authority.
When Judas betrayed Jesus, Jesus could
call him, "Friend", because He saw His Father's hand clearly. If we see
the sovereignty of God in all our circumstances, it'll be easy to humble
ourselves. And it'll be easy for God to exalt us at the proper time. God
knows the right time to lift a pressure from our shoulders and to give
us His authority. So let's wait for Him. No-one who waits for Him will
ever be disappointed or put to shame (Isaiah 49:23). Let us follow in
Jesus' footsteps. Let people say whatever evil they want to, about us.
If we honor God, He will one day honor us.
If we're serious about following the
Lord, we will find that God takes us through many painful experiences.
But His purpose in all of them will be to free us from the opinions of
men and from the chains that tie us down to earth - so that we can
"mount up with wings like eagles" (Isaiah 40:31). God will order our
circumstances to so humble us before men, that we finally come to the
place where we care only for His opinion. Then our spiritual authority
will be really powerful. May it be so for all of us.
© Copyright - Zac Poonen
This article has been copyrighted to
prevent misuse. It should not be reprinted or translated without written
permission from the author. Permission is however given for any part of
this book to be copied, provided it is for FREE distribution, provided
NO ALTERATIONS are made, provided the AUTHOR'S NAME AND ADDRESS are
mentioned and provided this COPYRIGHT notice ["Copyright by Zac Poonen"]
is included. For further details,
please contact:
Zac Poonen, 16 DaCosta Square, Bangalore - 560084. India.
For more articles by Zac Poonen go to:
www.poonen.org/zac and
www.cfcindia.com to subscribe to
his weekly message. You won't regret it!