How to be more humble before God

Look to Christ's example. After He was arrested He had many opportunities to show Himself as God, but He was silent. I often think of this when I am feeling self-righteous.

What also helped me was the book Abide In Christ by Andrew Murray. It takes practice but it is well worth the effort.

Prayers for you.

weallknowfrogsgoladida said:

I have had a tendency towards legalism, self righteousness, being judgemental and pride. I am not an overly confident person but seem to have this almost self hatred at the same time as a sort of pride and self righteousness. I try to follow Jesus and turn the other cheek etc, but I sometimes catch myself out and think, how could I be so self righteous! How to change??

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It is good to be aware of ourselves and our particular challenges. And the temptation to pride is VERY common - I would say nearly everyone struggles with it to some degree and often it is the most difficult passion to overcome.

There are many, many "tools" that we use to help us in this. One of the most effective suggested to me by my spiritual father was to choose someone most outstanding in the faith, and then anytime I began to feel I had done anything worthwhile, to compare myself as critically as possible with that person. This is a good start, because one of the things that tends to feed pride is that we usually compare ourselves to others around us. Not only that, but we also tend to judge them rather harshly, be unaware of their real virtues, and in the opposite fashion tend to excuse our own weaknesses and build up our own virtues. Practicing with these tendencies is helpful too. When someone cuts you off in traffic, instead of thinking to yourself what an inconsiderate jerk they are, think that maybe they've just gotten news that their child was in a car accident and they need to be at their side. When we ourselves do something stupid, there is usually a voice in our head giving the reason/justification. Use that voice to give reasons to others as well. Realize at the same time that our upset at losing our slot in traffic is just misguided pride, telling us that we owned or deserved that spot. Why do we deserve it? That's only pride. Step back. Let someone else go first. Begin to think of others as better than yourself.

These are just a very few things. Understand and expect that this won't be easy. Almost certainly, when you begin to try, you will face fierce temptation to think otherwise, to be prideful. The battle can be long and hard. Expect that. Try to always be aware of your thoughts, repent when necessary, ask God constantly for help. After a time - probably a long time - you will see a better inclination in yourself. But we can never relax our vigilance in this life.

There are many such things we can do to work on this.

God be with you!

PropheticTimes said:

Look to Christ's example. After He was arrested He had many opportunities to show Himself as God, but He was silent. I often think of this when I am feeling self-righteous.

What also helped me was the book Abide In Christ by Andrew Murray. It takes practice but it is well worth the effort.

Prayers for you.

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I must have given well over a dozen of those books to people as a guide to life. What I like most is that it's divided into 31 small chapters and can be read like a devotional by date as one is inclined to read.
Andrew Murray:Abide in Christ.Table of Contents

~Cassia~ said:

I must have given well over a dozen of those books to people as a guide to life. What I like most is that it's divided into 31 small chapters and can be read like a devotional by date as one is inclined to read.
Andrew Murray:Abide in Christ.Table of Contents

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How wonderful of you! I agree, the small chapters allow you to take it in chunks and digest the words.

scripture says that God humbles the proud...yield yourself to His working and take every opportunity He gives to practice.

Example...I was having lung spasms from allergic asthma. I wasn't going to go to church because of the pain but a friend called and asked if her daughter could sit with us because she was trying to get back into going to church but felt uncomfortable with anyone but us. Without saying anything about the lung spasms I humbled myself enough to but the daughter above myself and we went and let her sit with us. An opportunity to learn humility....

It is something that, I've found, takes much practice and reminding myself of. I have an issue with authority and tend to give an attitude to my employer if she irritates me, something I know is not humble and I'm working on. I really need to improve on taming my tongue at work. I keep praying about it and reminding myself.

weallknowfrogsgoladida said:

I have had a tendency towards legalism, self righteousness, being judgemental and pride. I am not an overly confident person but seem to have this almost self hatred at the same time as a sort of pride and self righteousness. I try to follow Jesus and turn the other cheek etc, but I sometimes catch myself out and think, how could I be so self righteous! How to change??

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How do you be more humble before God?
You don’t.

If you are before the Righteous and Holy God who sees all you are in behavior, thought, and deed you will indeed be humbled.

If you are not humble you are not before God – not in His Presence – not walking in the Holy Ghost.

Lack of humility is thinking you are something different than you are.
Lack of humility is believing you deserve what Christ has done for you or that you didn’t even need what He has provided.
Unless you are humbled by the Holy Presence there is never any gratitude.
It is called pride.

Not being humble is failing to be convicted of the Holy Ghost of your need to repent of not just sins, but for who you are that determined God the Father to pour out His wrath upon Jesus the Son on the Cross. That divine wrath was what was due us.

As long as we are the good people in the world we believe ourselves to be worthy of our divine blessing. Only when there is recognition that we are most like the criminals, murderers, prostitutes, drug users, haters, liars, and the selfish, than that we are like the Lord Jesus, do we find room for mercy. And mercy flows from the fountain of the humble, but the man who despairingly casts his judgment uses pride as his sling.

How do you be more humble before God?
FIRST - You must go before God!

You will know when you have been in His Presence.
You will be on your face.
Tears will flow like faucets.
And when you are finally able to speak it will express anguish like the Prophet Isaiah,
“Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” (6:5)

And upon leaving the Throne Room of the Most High you will be a new creature. The new man, who is born of the Spirit, loves and thinks differently. However, if we stay too long from this Holy Presence we again become like the world. Salvation is not meeting the Lord once in repentance. Salvation is only available while remaining humble in Christ. The Apostle Paul describes this as a walk in the Spirit.

The remaining question is this, “How do you go before the Lord?” It is with a broken heart that what is regularly observed as worship and praise is idolatry. How is this determined? The creature is the same old man after worship as before – nothing changed.
Worship and praise was just emotional hype.

Encountering the Most High always, always, always drastically changes the man as if born again and leaves him thirsty to for the water that makes him whole again.

22 September 2017 old scribe

ps Motivation can change behavior, but only God changes character.

I find which helps me a lot is I talk to God out loud and say things before prayer like "I humbly come before you."
I struggled a LOT with the things you mentioned. Now i am into deliverence. Pride and those things are actually negitive entities (demons). You can cast them.out in the name of Jesus.
Bad things enter from soul wounds sins and unforgivnesses. So it's important to close those doors. My pride demon turned out to be genetational if i recall properly. So i had to speak genetal curse breaking in Jesus before casting it out.
If you know someone knowledgeable in this field I'd go to see them.
We all just THINK these negitive qualities are really us but they are not. They usually get in at a young age and we think it's who we are. That devil is one tricky (bad word!).
I can help you if you'd like.
I can also teach you inner healing and deliverence if you feel lead.
God bless you.
Susan

weallknowfrogsgoladida said:

I have had a tendency towards legalism, self righteousness, being judgemental and pride. I am not an overly confident person but seem to have this almost self hatred at the same time as a sort of pride and self righteousness. I try to follow Jesus and turn the other cheek etc, but I sometimes catch myself out and think, how could I be so self righteous! How to change??

Click to expand...