Commentaries:
Humility is the key to oneness with God. Consequently, it is also the key to oneness with our brethren. God's way of achieving oneness is for each person to be so attuned to God that he is motivated to do everything possible to ensure that the relationship (with God or fellow man) is not only unbroken, but constantly becoming ever closer. We should do this because we are striving to become like Him, and that is how He is.
Each person is responsible for cleaning up his character and humbling himself before God. Each is not responsible for judging his brother so critically it drives a wedge between them and separates them. Such a person does not even see his own sin! In such a case, he could not be in God's Kingdom because that manner of thinking would continue right on into it, and God will not allow it there.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Pride, Humility, and the Day of Atonement
"On this one will I look" in Isaiah 66:2 means "I will pay attention to this person." It is another way of saying He will draw closer to such a man or woman. James 4:6-8, 10 reinforces the importance of humility in our relationship with God. Why is humility so important? It plays a major role in producing obedience and thus a good relationship with God. Put another way, humility manifests itself in obedience. It is the attitude of ready submission to God's will, as well as an expression of dependence upon Him. This quality of character is essential to growth, witnessing for God, glorifying God, receiving honor from God and salvation itself. The Bible reveals an order to these things: humility, submission, obedience, and honor (1 Peter 5:5-6).
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Sovereignty of God: Part Nine
We could paraphrase this as, "Somebody who believes Me and somebody who does what I say—that impresses Me." Do we want to impress God? It may be hard to do. It is certainly not hard to understand. Humility impresses Him and humility, as I Peter 5:5-7 and James 4:7-10 clearly show, is a choice. We choose to submit to God. That is what Christ did: He humbly submitted to God even to death (Philippians 2:8).
John W. Ritenbaugh
Reconciliation and the Day of Atonement
If you want to impress God, it is humility that impresses Him. Pride gets between us and God, and without realizing it, we actually shut Him out of our lives.
The Bible clearly shows that our spiritual well-being is dependent upon acknowledging, with our lives, our reliance upon the revealed will of God—His Word. Pride results from arrogating to oneself something for which one is indebted and would not even have except for God's benevolence. Who gave Lucifer his beauty? his intelligence? his position of power from which he operated? Pride perverted Lucifer's thinking into rejecting his dependence, and he elevated himself above God.
Now what do we have that we did not receive? Did we create ourselves? Did we create the great goal in life to be in the Kingdom of God and to be born into His Family? Did we reveal God to ourselves? Did we die on the stake for the forgiveness of our sins? Did the gift of the Holy Spirit come to us through our own agency? Did we lead ourselves to repentance? Who gave us the power to believe in the true God and in His Son Jesus Christ?
It is interesting to reflect on Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Lucifer comes along and says to them, "You will be as God." What entered into Adam and Eve at that moment? The pride of life. The result? They rejected the revelation of God. They rejected His Word and sinned. Pride subtly elevates a man to the same level as God, which results in him rejecting the very gifts God would give him for his salvation.
So, consciously or subconsciously, the proud man—us (hopefully not as much as it used to be)—is saying that he already knows better, or has the power and ability within himself by nature, thereby subtly turning salvation into something God owes him. It becomes earned.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Faith (Part 7)
God wants us to worship Him directly—not through an idol. When we set up an idol, we are in fact sacrificing to one or more demons! God wants us to worship Him humbly rather than the way the world worships idols. It is degrading to worship an idol. Conversely, God calls us into His own spiritual presence to worship Him directly. Whenever we stop short of our face-to-face relationship and worship of our sovereign God by placing a visible entity before Him, we break the second commandment. God looks to those who worship Him in humility and respectful fear and despises those who choose their own ways.
Martin G. Collins
The Second Commandment
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