What is meant by "To be humble before God"?

Full Question:

What is meant by "To be humble before God"? How God want us to be Humble? Why God wants us to be humble?

Answer:

I consider the answer of this question as one of the most important thing which every Christian must need to know. God want every one of us to be humble in front of him and before other people. Every Christians know very well that God wants each and everyone of us to be humble. But the problem is that many of them don’t know what it is meant by to be humble before God, how God want us to be humble and why God want us to be humble.

I think first of all you need to get the answer of why is humbleness important. Let me tell you. To be humble is not a commandment in the bible, but it is a matter of wisdom, which will even help us to enter into the heaven and to receive the grace from God. You can be humble or not. If you become humble, God will give you His grace according to James 4:6, you will be exalted according to Matthew 23:12, to exalt you at the proper time according to 1 Peter 5:6, to be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven according to Matthew 18:4, to revive your spirit according to Isaiah 57:15 and so on.

Humbleness in dictionary means, marked by meekness or modesty in behavior, attitude, or spirit not arrogant or prideful, showing deferential, low in rank and so on. Many peoples misunderstand the meaning of humbleness with the meaning that is in dictionary, while it is not. Dictionary meaning of humbleness can be considered only as a small part of biblical meaning. Maybe some of you may think how it can be different. I'll tell you very simply. The meaning of faith in dictionary is, to trust in somebody's ability or knowledge and to trust that somebody/something will do what has been promised (Oxford). While Bible says, faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. But we can also see that the dictionary meaning of faith can be considered as a small part of its biblical meaning.

Bible do not tells us the meaning of humbleness directly like it tells about faith. But Bible contains its meaning indirectly and is also possible to extract that meaning very simply. It says 'to be humble before God' means to be obedient to God and to submit or to perform His will.

We can see it clearly by the epistles of Philippines 2:8 that “Jesus humbled himself in obedience to God” In the book of Jonah we can see the people including the king of Nineveh humbled themselves to escape from the wrath of God. People misunderstand the humbleness of Nineveh people is that Jonah 3:6 “When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God.”

Actually this is not their humbleness, but it was only a part of their humbleness which is of less important. Their humbleness, which is to do the will of God, is on the next verse which says “Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.” You can see it clearly by God’s reply that “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.”

By the incident above we can see clearly that the humbleness God expect is to humble our body, but it is to being obedient to him and to perform His will. We can see the humbleness which God expect from us is obedience in different parts of the bible such as Exodus 10:3, Leviticus 26:41, Deuteronomy 8:2,3,16, 2 Kings 22:19, 2 Chronicles 7:14; 12:6,7; 12:12; 36:12 and so on. (Please refer yourselves.)

In the Old Testament and New Testament, God wants us to be humble, while there is a difference for how God want us to be humble. The inner content of what God expected from the people at the time of old Testament to be humble, is the same as that of New Testament, which is to be obedient to God and to submit or to perform His will. But we can see a difference in the way people expressed their humbleness in the time of Old Testament. They also covered themselves with sackcloth, sat down in the dust and also by fasting.

Many people consider humbleness is to count them as nothing. They used to tell Phil 2:3 “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.” Let me tell you friends, who told you to make yourselves count nothing for considering others better than yourselves? Very simply, if you think you can understand that while you have nothing, you consider others always better that yourselves saying things like, ‘Look, he have everything and I am the only one in this world with nothing’ and so on. I would say we have to posses many spiritual and natural blessings and then you have to consider others better than yourself. Because, at these time of prosperity only comes the real trouble to consider others better than yourselves.

I also consider counting ourselves as nothing is something God really hates because God is the one who consider Himself as everything. We can also see God became angry due to these types of humbleness when Moses considers himself nothing and also as timid and also when Elijah considers himself nothing, by the words of Isabella.

As I already answered, what is meant by, to be humble before God, it is very easy to answer how God wants us to be humble. Some of you may think why God wants us to be a humble. We can see two main reasons for it in the Bible. One reason is that God like us to be humble because Jesus Christ is humble and He like all of us to have the same nature and the character of Jesus Christ. Secondly, to be humble is a necessary and sufficient condition to enter into the kingdom of heaven and God wants us to enter there.

May God bless all of us to be humble by being obedient to him and by submitting ourselves to perform His will.