Quotes about Humility

Christianity is not a do-it-yourself thing.

If you and I are to appropriate God's grace in our times of need, we must see His sovereignty ultimately ruling in all the circumstances of our lives. And when those circumstances are difficult, disappointing, or humiliating, we must humble ourselves under His mighty hand.

It's not enough to agree that we do tolerate at least some of them. Anyone except for the most self-righteous person will acknowledge that. "After all, no one is perfect," may be our attitude. But to honestly face those sins is another matter. For one thing, it is quite humbling. It also implies that we must do something about them. We can no longer continue to ignore them as we have in the past.

How futile and even arrogant for us to seek to determine what God is doing in a particular event or circumstance.

First, we should never use the doctrine as an excuse for our own shortcomings.

The prayer of a Christian is not an attempt to force God's hand, but a humble acknowledgment of helplessness and dependence. When we are on our knees, we know that it is not we who control the world; it is not in our power, therefore, to supply our needs by our own independent efforts; every good thing that we desire for ourselves and for others must be sought from God, and will come, if it comes at all, as a gift from His hands.3

God owes me no explanation. He has the right to do what He wants, when He wants, and how He wants. Why? Because He's God. . .

The problem with self-righteousness is that it seems almost impossible to recognize in ourselves. We will own up to almost any other sin, but not the sin of self-righteousness. When we have this attitude, though, we deprive ourselves of the joy of living in the grace of God. Because, you see, grace is only for sinners.

That is, humility should be as much a part of us as the clothes we wear. We wouldn't think of appearing before other people without our clothes. And we shouldn't think of appearing before other people without deliberately clothing ourselves with an attitude of humility.

It is so easy for us to stand apart from the culture and do no more than express self-righteous judgmentalism toward it. But those of us who grieve deeply over our own sin will not do this. Instead we will mourn over the sins and wickedness of our nation and will pray most urgently that, just as we want God to be merciful to us, so we want Him to be merciful to our nation as a whole. This will be another expression of humility in action.

We are all sinners and are on an equal plane with one another. So we cannot exercise grace as God does, but we can relate to one another as those who have received grace and who wish to operate on the principles of grace.

Great things happen in small places. Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Jesse Jackson was born in Greenville.