By: Pastor Jarren Rogers

“Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of it all, because it alone assumes the right attitude before God and allows Him as God to do all” – Andrew Murray

Pride can be considered the root of all sin. I want this. I wish I had what they had. I don’t like them. It’s all about me.

Look at the Fall. What was it that finally pushed Adam and Eve over the edge and caused original sin?

“‘You will not certainly die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it” (Genesis 3:4-6).

It was pride. I want to be like God. I want to have knowledge beyond myself. I want to know of good and evil. Sin entered the world because humanity felt like they deserved more.

While pride may be the root of sin, humility is the root of holiness. It is when we take the position of a servant, kneeling at Christ’s feet, that we are truly able to be changed by Christ.

“‘God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time” (1 Peter 5:5-6).

The only way that we can experience spiritual growth, the only way we can be sanctified, overfilled with His Spirit, and molded into His image, is by taking up a spirit of humility

I used to think that pride was never a thing that I struggled with. I don’t think very much of myself.  I never thought that I was all that. But when I really thought about it, I realize that much of what I think about… is me! It was always my problems, my struggles, my hurt, my pain.

The fact of the matter is that if we look at the origination of our deepest anxieties, worries, and doubts, all of them originate from a focus on ourselves. All of them stem from the spotlight being on us.

It is only when we chose to step aside and let God take control, when we realize our problems, our issues, our circumstances, are not ours but are instead His – that is when we can finally be released from the weight on our shoulders. It is then that we can be released from the burden that we were never meant to bear in the first place.

What if we turned the focus of our problems from us to what God is doing in and through them? God, how are you at work?