“Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
One of the greatest temptations we face today is a belief in our self importance. We look at whatever is going on and ask ourselves is this good or bad for me economically, socially, politically, or financially. We all like to think that we are not stupid. We all like to think that we are smart if not smarter than the next person. We all like to think that we are number one and number one should take care of number one. After all isn’t that what this world expects? Indeed our entire society directs our attention to its values and ethics – values and ethics are designed to look after number one.
The problem with success is that it takes more and more effort to maintain it. We work harder and harder and become more and more consumed by earthly success. So any dollar that we may otherwise give to charity we don’t because simply put even if we make another million dollars we still will never make up that one dollar given away – so we don’t. And as we grow more and more self important we begin to exult ourselves – see ourselves as something special. On the other hand, any person who doesn’t share our values is quickly discarded. What use is a person that says let me give my services away when the very same services given away could be sold for great profit. The problem of course is that there is a lot of truth in the saying “the bigger they are the harder they fall”. So the exultant of this world strive more and more because their greatest fear is failure. Failure means they will be shunned and the humiliation suffered by them would be unbearable.
On the other hand the true Christian is one that puts himself second always. The True Christian has no fear of failure. The true Christian welcomes humility in his adversity. He doesn’t seek to exult himself rather he tries to follow in the footsteps of Christ. He doesn’t ask what would I do in a given situation but rather what would Christ do in a given situation. The true Christian lives Christ and breathes Christ. By so doing, the centre of the Christians’ being is not their ego which is self-destructive, but Christ himself. It is Christ who exalts – by being numbered as one of his sheep we are his – he knows as each by name for we are his. There can be no greater exaltation than that.