The characteristic that Jesus is extolling in today’s block of teaching is humility. God is zealously protective of those who are humble. That is the opening point. What follows are two characteristics of humble people. In the first place, a humble person will never stand as judge over a person and condemn them, no matter how badly and how often they do the wrong thing. When we judge and condemn someone, we are implicitly assuming that, given the same circumstances, we would never do the same thing. That is an entirely unrealistic assumption and we should be embarrassed by ever having thought that way. The third characteristic of humility is a lack of entitlement. A humble person does not believe that other people owe them anything. Rather, being infinitely in God’s debt, they consider themselves to be indebted to every person they meet. They express their gratitude to God in how they serve others. God gives us so much, more than we deserve, but he does not owe us anything. A humble person knows that they owe their very lives to Christ and they treat every person as though he or she was Christ himself, for Jesus said: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). The world does not owe you any recognition. Every bit of good you have done is only your duty, it does not earn you merit. The humble person does not think less of himself, he just thinks of himself less. If Christ is your Lord, then you are the servant of all.
In what areas of your life do you need to be more humble?
Read Luke 17:1-10
