False Humility

 “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” – Hebrews 4:16

To approach God’s throne of grace with confidence requires the absence of shame. Too many of us have assumed the position of self-guilt in our own attempt to exalt God and steer clear of pride. This position is called “false humility”. False humility will never allow an  individual to receive a single gift from anyone, let a lone God. But if the Gospel of Jesus is indeed the good news that has set us free, we can rest assured that Christ has made us a new creation and we then have nothing to be ashamed of in Him. Yet, if we remain in the mindset of false humility, we can have no confidence in Jesus and God’s gift of grace and mercy is not able to be received.

“Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up” (James 4:10). In order to humble ourselves before the Lord, we must know the real meaning of humility. The essence of humility is simply knowing who we are before God and acknowledging our need of Him. This is not to be misconstrued with shame. Shame is the guilty feeling of committing something wrong while also devaluing oneself. Therefore, when we humble ourselves before God, we come in the simple acknowledgement of our necessity of Him. In doing so, we allow Him to lift us up as our gaze and focus is solely on Him and away from ourselves. How, then, can we devalue ourselves when He considers us worthy to be lifted up?

A father may hand his son a jacket as a gift. A gift is meant to be received and taken ownership of. A jacket is meant to be warn. If the son is too ashamed and deems himself as unworthy, the gift cannot be received. Yet, even if he receives the gift and the jacket is never warn, the gift fulfills no purpose. Therefore, we must receive the gift that is given to us from our Father with real humility.

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). God’s gift to us through Jesus Christ was for us to be counted as righteous. Can we say that we are still sinners if we claim to have received God’s gift of righteousness? That would be a contradiction. If we truly believe our sins have been forgiven (Colossians 1:14), that God has removed our transgression as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12), that He’s cleansed us from a guilty conscience (Hebrews 10:22), and sin shall no longer have dominion over us (Romans 6:14), we then can approach God’s throne of grace with our confidence being established in Him.