Good Morning My Friends! Let us approach this day with humility. There’s freedom embracing humility. Come, let’s see what the Lord means by living intentionally today by embracing humility and refraining from conceit.
As I dove into today’s message of intentional living, I discovered conceit is really a form of pride, a symptom of pride. Oh my goodness, God is taking us there: pride! I’m just going to warn you, I think God has a lot to say to us about pride. Today, He’s focusing our attention on conceit.
Chains of Conceit
God doesn’t want us to be conceited. In fact, He comes right out and says it as such:
“Let us not become conceited” (Galatians 5:26, NIV).
“Do not be conceited” (Romans 12:16, NIV).
Conceit is having an excessively high opinion of oneself.
Perhaps this lingo may help us understand more clearly what being conceited looks like:
- Stuck-up
- Smug
- Snobbish
- Snotty
Merriam Webster thesaurus uses the word “complacent” to bring more clarity to conceit.
To be conceited, means we are so self-focused on our own satisfaction that we’re unaware of our deficiencies. Basically being conceited is when we feel or show satisfaction with ourselves or our position or achievements that we elevate ourselves excessively. In other words, we’re stuck-up!
When we’re conceited, we exalt ourselves above others; we’re essentially looking down, being condescending on others.
God hates that! He doesn’t like it at all when we take on this high opinion of ourselves. Check out Proverbs 6:16-19. There’s a list of things God hates. Since conceit is a form of pride God hates it.
If we don’t humble ourselves, God will! And I know when God has to humble us, it’s much more painful than if we choose to embrace humility on our own.
“Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matthew 23:12, NIV).
Here are two major things that should motivate us to not want God to have to humble us:
- Disgrace
“When pride comes, disgrace follows” (Proverbs 11:2, HCSB).
- Destruction
“Pride comes before destruction” (Proverbs 16:18, HCSB).
I know I don’t want to be disgraced or have some kind of destruction happen in my life. Do you?
Freedom in Humility
We can choose to live in the freedom humility. With humility, God rewards us. He wants us to value others above ourselves, not look down on others.
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves” (Philippians 2:3, NIV)
Humility is the quality or state of being humble
It’s living in freedom from pride.
Humility is the opposite of conceit.
There’s big rewards for us if we choose to embrace humility:
- Favor from the Lord
“All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.’” (1 Peter 5:5, NIV).
- Wisdom
“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom” (Proverbs 11:2, NIV).
- Fear of the Lord
- Wealth
- Honor
- Life
“The result of humility is fear of the Lord, along with wealth, honor, and life” (Proverbs 22:4, HCSB).
Those are some pretty amazing rewards we can receive if we intentionally choose to embrace humility.
I’d say since we have a choice of being either snobs or receiving God’s favor, let’s choose to clothe ourselves today with the attitude of Jesus. Let’s embrace humility and not think we’re so “all-that!”
After all, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. (Job 1:21).
For today, don’t be chained in conceit. Don’t be a snob! Live in the freedom of humility.
Just for Today
Refrain from Conceit, Embrace Humility
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