Day 31 | 40-Day Lenten Fast & Devotional

In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, 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

Good morning, good morning, good morning, grace and peace be unto all of you, my father's children. It is in fact day number 31 in our 40 day Lenten devotional. This week we have been focused on the area and the place of humility. So if you would, I'd like you to turn with me to the book of 1 Peter, 1 Peter, chapter five. And we're going to look at two quick verses and chapter five, starting at verse number five.

You find these words. In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders,  all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another because God opposes the proud but shows  favor to the humble. Verse six, humble yourselves therefore under God's mighty hand  that he may lift you up  in due time. This is not just a message to a younger generation.

This is just to all of us in general. For example, we belong to a society that ultimately we want everything so quickly. We want recognition for everything. We want to be  acknowledged for everything. And God's saying, look, I'm going to honor those who are humble. He says he opposes the proud. In other words, humility is almost like your clothing grace within moving throughout this life.

Ultimately, we're going to continue to make mistakes. We're going to always fall short. We're always going to be in a position where we could do or be better. And the only thing that gives us grace inside of that is Christ himself. But also,  it's our  attitude,  being humble. I can't stress enough the fact that God does the elevating. God does the acknowledging. God does the exhalation, if you will. And when we seek to try and do it ourselves, we find ourselves oftentimes falling short, exposed, a number of different things which are not part of the original design. He says he opposes the proud. These glory seeking times have to be subdued and we have to be in a place where we can be humble. That's hard even in the church because even in church, we want credit for everything that we do. We want credit. We want to show that we're really holding up the bloodstained banner. We're be honored in every season and we don't want to be overlooked. But it says that he will lift you up in due time. In other words, nobody, nobody, nobody, there's no human level of elevation  that can supersede God's sovereign movement  for how he operates within our lives.  And if we receive the approval, the understanding, the motion and the movement, from God himself and not from other people  will always be in a position to get the accolades that God wants us to have. Most of the time we're trying to be honored amongst people who won't have a heaven and a hell to put us in.  But when God elevates you, when God places you in position, when God  pushes you,  then ultimately it's places that no one can take you out of.  See, when man elevates you, you can always be snatched down.

When God moves you, there is nothing, no entity, no essence that can remove you from the place that God has. And we need to seek God's approval above and beyond everything else. Seeking God's approval ought to be our aim, ought to be our goal. And the way that we approach it is by being humble. If we did all of our reasonable service as a service solely to God,  that would be the thrust that…look forward to monitor and model our lives after.

So today I want you to focus in this one place. Be humble. Because God opposes the proud. But the thing that he does to those who are humble, he shows favor. If there's any place in point,  I need God's favor  beyond anyone else's approval. I need God's favor.

I hope this has been empowering for you. Have an incredible, incredible, phenomenal Wednesday. I look forward to seeing and talking with you on tomorrow morning. God bless you. Great one.