If I had to choose one word to summarize improving our desired relationships with our Abba Father, our spouse, and each other, it would be “humility.” No other word comes close because it is a catalyst for change and a goal for change that everyone can understand. And it reflects the very makeup of human Jesus. It is also closely related to the following three messages, Forgiveness, An Attitude of Gratitude, and our Conversations with our Abba Father.

Notice how the secular definition is a condition, but the godly definition is a position relative to our Abba Father. In secular life, humility is freedom from pride and arrogance, humbleness, a modest estimate of our own worth. In our Abba Father’s world, humility is much more profound. It is a sense of unworthiness in his eyes, repentance for sin, and submission to his will.

When we move our position toward our Abba Father, we start to both please him and achieve the earthly definition of humility. In addition, we start to experience the full joy and glory of our Abba Father. When we realize the Holy Bible is a self-help book for humility and not only a God history book, our Holy Bible reading and our lives become much more meaningful.

Our issue with humility is not what it is. Our issue is the large variety of temperaments with which humility must co-exist. Our Abba Father still feeds the sparrows daily, but our life includes an income, meals, shelter, clothes, a family, wants, desires, and pressures, plus an enormity of sin. Very few believers feel fed by our Abba Father like the birds are, which is another lesson, but the sparrow never gets tired of seeds. The Exodus generation made it clear that God’s children want meat (Exodus 16), so that is our starting point.

Part of maturing from childhood to adulthood is shaping our life script, and our DNA, family, friends, enemies, and events can influence that. And our Abba Father. One of the significant failures of Christianity is the failure to connect our lives to him. Growing up, I had twelve years of Sunday school, and attendance pins head to toe. I knew every Holy Bible verse and story they required, and my mom was so proud!

The only thing they forgot to teach me was God, my Abba Father. When I left home for college, I assumed I had graduated from God school, and my college did not require any God courses to achieve an engineering degree. I went forty-plus years without God in my conscience, but today I “engineer” his words into messages. So, relax; God is on time, and you never come to him late.

Back when doctors made house calls the norm, there was a humorous statement often heard in response to evening phone calls to the doctor, “take two aspirin and call me in the morning.” That line is too often emulated with scripture, “take two verses and call me in the morning.” My point is that a Holy Bible verse is not only an aspirin; it is a stepping stone to bring us closer to our Abba Father and his plan for us. That is how we realize true peace and joy in our earthly life.

So why do we even care about humility in life? The reality is we usually do not care unless we are experiencing failures that more humility might cure. A lack of humility can push people away with arrogance, selfishness, and condescending words to others coming from a belief of superiority.

Feeling inferior can also cause an artificial persona of superiority as a defense mechanism. Still, it is much easier to reduce too much of something (too much superiority) than adding something (more confidence) when scarce. That is where we disconnect from psychology-type thinking for solutions and look to godly thinking for a new, sanctified life.

Godly humility reflects our obedience to our Abba Father; we gain little by looking for how to achieve “humility” itself, although that is the typical approach. In the opening, we referred to humility as our position relative to God. And this is where I disconnect from traditional church teaching and much of biblical counseling. Believers love to quote Romans 3:23 out of context as Novocain, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” when telling us our lack of humility and its cousin, pride, are sins that we must stop committing. Problem solved!

Our Abba Father’s mechanism for sin needs to be better understood because it is an integral step in moving closer to our Abba Father, no matter what is going on in our life. Don’t be shocked, but Jesus did not die only to pay for our sins. A giant warehouse full of paid-for sin has zero value to us.

The first thing that happened after Jesus died was our Abba Father taring the veil (curtain) in the temple that separated him from his children (S1M1). He had finally created a pathway for his children to come directly to him, no human (priest/pastor) involved.

We access forgiveness through confession of our sins. 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Jesus taking the sin of the world into him on the cross was like making a bank deposit in our name, but we still must write the check with a confession. Jesus paying for our sins was necessary for the bigger purpose, returning to our Abba Father.

And that is the beginning of moving closer to our Abba Father. Talking to him about our sins (that God already knows) creates awareness of our sins in OUR conscience, and then we ask the Holy Spirit to help us do better. It is our conversations with him that bring the relationship to life.

The Christian life is a continuous self-improvement project, and that is our life with our Abba Father, growing closer to him by striving to do better every day. The great news is it is enormously rewarding once it becomes our way of life.

Teaching the Holy Spirit is another significant failure of Christianity, as most churches stop at Easter. Jesus died, came back, ascended to Heaven, and we got new clothes! What else could there be? I find how Christians miss Pentecost unfathomable; Jesus and the Holy Spirit are a one-two punch of our Abba Father’s design. Jesus comes, leaves and the Holy Spirit comes, as described in Acts 2. We must tune into the Holy Spirit more for success.

The disciples stood beside Jesus and watched him but were still scared to death even after Jesus returned from the grave. After Acts 2, with the Holy Spirit (and Jesus) in them, they became fearless preaching, healing machines walking into certain death. Jesus said we would do greater things with the Holy Spirit than with him (John 14:12-28)! Bringing the Holy Spirit into our life is another lesson, but it is essential to bring him to life in any application of Scripture.

Now that we are better focused, let us look at what the Scripture says about humility. James 4:7-9 is a good start, “Be subject therefore unto God; but resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye doubleminded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.” James 4:10, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall exalt you.”

Verse ten is excellent advice, and James surrounded it with an incredible book of wisdom about living a life with our Abba Father. Do not fall prey to a verse as a bromide. The book of James is the Proverbs of the New Testament, written to scattered Jews converted to believers. They were Jews who knew how we live our lives is essential to our Abba Father. They saw that the Messiah had come, and life was still full of tribulation, probably at the moment worse than before he came.

James is the most important book in the New Testament about living a life for and with our Abba Father. James covers many issues, trials, tests, temptations, anger, worldliness, prejudice, helping the poor, controlling the tongue, intimacy with our Abba Father, patience in suffering, accountability, and more. James is entreating his recipients to live a life that trusts in our Abba Father’s promises regardless of circumstances. Make James part of your life.

In logic science, if A=B and B=C, then A=C. In many respects, that is how “humility” is used in therapy. Learn to be humble, “A,” and “C” will happen. Many say being humble is the primary goal of the Christian life, but I offer that a better Christian life is the primary goal. If we strive directly for a Christian life, we should become humble. Whichever way you walk, the walking is what matters.

Romans 3:17 is an important verse in our discussion, “Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’ and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked . . .” That verse highlights our position relative to our Abba Father, which by definition, is very low because he is perfect.

Compared to him, we rarely get enough better at closing that gap noticeably. And yet our Abba Father loves us, forgives us, and wants to spend eternity with us. Compared to our Abba Father, our change is tiny but compared to our life; it means the difference between joy and misery, possibly even redemption.

I find great solace in the fact that our Abba Father loves us despite all our flaws and I feel humbled by it. But if I believe I am humble because I see that I am wretched, I might believe I have succeeded. But we are never done; we never actually succeed. But he still rewards our efforts (Rev 22:12)!