Looking at Pride and Humility

For the next few weeks we will be running excerpts from the book that Mike Fontenot and I teamed to write a number of years ago, The Prideful Soul's Guide to Humility. The books is still available and we continue to receive comments about its impact.

      We are writing on this topic not because we think we have arrived at some level that qualifies us to write, or because we think we can do a better job than some others. Only one man was totally qualified by character to write on this subject, and he never wrote anything that we know about for sure, save a few words in the dirt before a trembling woman and a gang of self-righteous religious leaders. We are certainly not writing because we think we have humility all figured out or know every important point to make. We write because this topic simply must be written about. If God would have us proclaim anything, he would have us proclaim the rightness and the power of humility. If there is anything he wants to call our attention to and have us think about, it is humility.

        Passage after passage in the Scriptures make it clear that humility is the way to God’s heart. The proud find the door closed to his inner sanctum, but those who demonstrate humility are welcomed there again and again. By some measures of performance the former group may outshine the latter, but never mind. God does not receive us on the basis of performance. He receives us on the basis of heart, and no quality of heart is more important to him than humility.

        There is nothing more important for a disciple of Jesus than humility. We are not overstating the case to say that we will not be in the kingdom of God at all if we do not heartily embrace the message of this book. We are not saying you must get the message from this book or agree with every detail that you find here. But we are saying you must get the message of humility from somewhere, and put it in your heart.