A Holy Life is a Humble Life
A humble character and heart are really at the core of what it means to be holy, as Jeff Colón helps us see in this week’s blog.
Mike: I want to talk today about a word that we may not naturally equate with humility and that is holiness. We of course read a lot about holiness; we read that God Himself is holy, and we are commanded to be holy as He is holy. So, let's start off with this question. What can we look at in our own lives and see as genuine proof that we have some understanding of what holiness really is?
Jeff: For a lot of us, we think of holiness in more of an outward sense of looking a certain way or acting a certain way. When we do that, we make the mistake of not understanding what true biblical holiness looks like. The only genuine proof of our holiness is how humble we are before God and before man. It makes me think of Hebrews 12:14, where we are told to live in peace with everyone and to seek to live a clean and a holy life because those who are not holy will not see the Lord. What we see there is that holiness is an issue of the heart. In order to be holy, we need to be living in harmony and peace. You cannot do that if you are not walking in a humble heart before God and man.
Mike: One of the traps when trying to walk in holiness is when we try to do it in our own strength. I find this impossible to do because it doesn't come naturally to us. And so really, we're talking about an aspect of walking in the Spirit, right?
Jeff: Absolutely, and that means surrendering ourselves to the Lord and allowing the Holy Spirit to reign in our hearts and in our lives. It’s just yielding to what God has already provided us with through His Spirit
Mike: I know in another interview, we talked about the need to wait on God. And in that discussion, we talked about the necessity of depending on the strength of the arm of God rather than our own strength. I think one of the reasons that is so important is because if we are trying to achieve holiness in our own strength, we are going to end up becoming like a pharisee.
Jeff: Exactly, because then we will pride ourselves on how holy we are. But when you are trying to live out holiness with the idea that your inside world and your heart must be humble before God you won’t be able to avoid seeing how much pride you have and your need to humble yourself. I know in my life it drives me to the Lord and helps me see my need for Him. When I come to that place, then I can believe Him and trust Him to give me the grace to walk in His humility towards others.
Mike: We know that one of the ways God develops holiness in our lives is by humbling us and breaking us. But I want to talk about the reality of that playing out and I want to use some of the men in our Residential Program as an example. Many of these men come to us having gone through some real outwardly broken situations. Some of them have had their sin exposed to their church, lost their jobs, or their wives and children have turned away from them. I mean, just all kinds of really broken situations, but that alone does not lead one to holiness. Explain why.
Jeff: Those situations will help lead someone to brokenness and humility. We all have times where God does use a situation to humble us. But it's not enough to have a humbling experience and then think, we’re suddenly holy or humble. In the process of God trying to bring you into humility and brokenness, you need to have a revelation of the mercy God has had on you. That is where true brokenness and repentance comes. When we are humbled and broken by the consequences of our sin, we get a better sight of what Jesus has actually done for us and we gain an appreciation for the cross.
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When you have experienced true brokenness like this it produces in you a desire to be a servant of Christ. Part of that comes through a humbling experience, but then it has to be continually lived out, never forgetting what God has done. Having the mindset that your life is no longer your own and wanting to serve Him from your heart all the days of your life.
Mike: It’s almost like God uses those humbling or breaking circumstances to till the soil of our hearts so that it's open to receiving the revelation knowledge of who Jesus is. How important is it that we grow in our understanding of who Jesus is in order to live a holy life?
Jeff: It's everything, because to the degree that we have Him and we're walking with Him in the Spirit, choosing to yield to His Word and not what our flesh wants to do, we start learning the secret of what abiding in Christ is. And the more we abide in Christ, which really is a lifestyle of doing His commandments from the heart with a servant’s attitude, the more fruit starts manifesting in our lives.
Mike: And part of that fruit is coming into an understanding of agape love, what the love of Christ is. That really is the remedy for false humility, isn't it?
Jeff: Oh absolutely. If we're in that first love, where we understand God's love for us and have a true appreciation for what he's done for us, this is going to come automatically. That's the difference between the pharisee and the tax collector. A person in the same mindset as the tax collector will understand how much they have been forgiven and will joyfully surrender their life and serve Christ with their whole heart.
Mike: One comes from a superficial knowledge that leads to death, and the other comes from true humility that leads to life.
Jeff: Yeah. And one relies on self to be holy, while the other looks to Christ for their holiness.
Mike: I know that as we grow in our walk of faith, one of the traps we can fall into is comparing ourselves to others. What is the great danger of doing that, particularly in this area of holiness?
Jeff: One of the dangers I see in my own life is that when I start comparing myself with other people, I become the focus. Also, it is always easier to focus on someone that you appear better than. But Jesus is our example, and we need to be looking at Him. He is our example and the one we are to be following so the danger of looking and comparing ourselves to others is that it’ll make us the focus in place of Him.
Mike: You mentioned the importance earlier of coming to know the love of Christ and the heart of Christ. As a person begins to spend time with the Lord and as the Holy Spirit begins to reveal the heart of Jesus to them, it is going to humble them. It is going to have a humbling effect on them as they see Jesus as He really is and as they see the glory of God for what it really is. It is going to change their attitude and they are going to look at themselves and others very differently. My final question before we close this show is how important is it not to be a hearer of the Word only, but to be a doer of the Word on this issue of holiness?
Jeff: Well, the rubber meets the road when we apply the Word of God in our hearts. James tells us to not just be hearers only, because that will profit us nothing. If we want to profit in holiness, we must embrace what Jesus said in His Word about humbling ourselves, about loving others and about having the mind of Christ. We must actually do that from the heart. When we do, we find Jesus there. And it's only when we find Him and run to Him in those moments that we are clothed in His humility.
Mike: Jesus is the truly humble and holy servant.
Jeff: Yeah. There really is no other way to find true holiness, but in Him.
