Day 230, Year 1

Humble Yourselves Under the Mighty Hand of God

“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time.” (1 Peter 5:6 NASB)

The word for “humble” in today’s verse is tapeinoo in Greek. This verse is especially written for believers who are willing to humble themselves to imitate Jesus Christ. First, the verse speaks of humility as humbling ourselves under God’s mighty hand. On the contrary, many people resist the hand of God. One obvious wretch in the Old Testament is the Pharaoh in the book of Exodus. Despite knowing God’s will to free all the Israelite slaves to worship Him, he repeatedly resisted His will. Similarly, there are those who know God’s will but repeatedly resist Him. It is very difficult for such people to be saved.

In fact, there is more or less reluctance in believers to obey the Lord. At this point, humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God means striving to deal with our disobedience toward Him, allowing the power of Jesus to manifest in us, and gradually and thoroughly eliminating it. Even though Jesus knocks at the doors of people’s hearts, it is difficult for those who hear His voice to feel His mighty power. It is because the sound of Jesus knocking on the door is usually not shocking. Thus, we who dine with the Lord often need to ask Him to manifest His mighty hand to us.

Believers who have just come to Christ often go through a period of being humbled so as to submit to God’s mighty hand. It is the Lord’s will that we imitate Jesus by humbling ourselves and learning humility before we are promoted or exalted to leadership or other influential ministry positions in His designated time. Conversely, most of those who experienced the power of the Lord when they first believed in Christ and were promoted to positions of leadership very soon could easily experience a regression in faith or even a state of unbelief. Those people have often spent insufficient time and energy dealing with their old man, the flesh, evil desires, and lusts in the first several years of believing in Him, but instead spend a lot of time serving and leading others. As time passes, it is easy for the devil to destroy their bare faith and overthrow their devotion to Jesus through temptations and attacks with their old man and lusts altogether. Therefore, it is necessary, right, and beneficial for all believers, especially in the early stages of faith, to learn humility and submit ourselves under the mighty hand of God.

Reflection questions:

1) Do you need to pray more for God’s mighty hand to come upon you to deal with the problems that arise from your old man, the flesh, evil desires, lusts, etc.? Why?

2) Have you been willing to humble yourself in doing lowly work since your early stages of faith? If so, what else would you do to humble yourself?