It’s worth keeping in mind where we’re coming from here – we’ve been talking about the desire to relocate from the “natural” world that we’ve been living, and start living lives where our spirit has precedence and where “impossibility thinking” is normal!
Now is probably a good time to discuss an issue that I really have struggled with – humility - not because I disagree with the concept of humility, but because I came to realise that this characteristic is a precursor to just about everything, and it’s a concept so much larger than I first anticipated!
I have had a concept of humility, but I think it was probably based on a whole lot of stuff that I kind of picked up as I ambled along through my life.
My concept of humility carried with it the connotation of weakness and getting walked over. The classic “turn the other cheek” mentality. One the other hand, throughout my life, I’ve been taught that I needed to have boundaries, and that God doesn’t intend for people take advantage of me. As a result, I have lived with this “two headed monster” that seems determined to pull me in two directions at once.
Does this sound sort of familiar?
Having said all that, I had a real sense that if I didn’t come to grips with this whole “humility” concept, there could be a bottle-neck in making the relocation happen.
This section of the manifesto is broken into a couple of parts – that’s how big the concept got! I’d encourage you to check this section out with a very open mind – to put aside your previous conceptions of humility and start from the ground up.
Looking for examples
I needed some examples to begin with – some illustration or pattern that could give me direction on humility. My first point of call was Moses – he seemed like a logical starting point since the bible says Moses was humble “above all the men on the face of the earth” .
Before I did that, I reminded myself of Galatians 5:23 which says that humility is one of the fruits of the Spirit – it’s not a natural thing for humans to have (maybe even contrary to “normal” human nature). Since we’re talking about an “impossible God”, Who creates “impossible things”, I could reasonably go so far as to say that humility is an impossible trait for humans to have (in the way that we need to have it) unless God has some considerable involvement.
This is an important “sideline” (and it helped me a bit to understand this) – if you go back and have a look at fruits of the Spirit, I propose that we have no capacity at all – none whatsoever - to create characteristics such as faith, self-control, godliness, etc on our own. We may be able to create a “form of godliness” , and perhaps generate something that “kind of” godly or “kind of” patient, but it will lack power and efficacy.
Throughout this section there’s going to be a wide range of issues, so you’ll find that I’ll try and reduce this stuff to diagrams wherever possible….starting now!
So, having established that humility is created in us by God (under the circumstances mentioned above) let’s get back to Moses…
Moses started his life from a position of great affluence and advantage. He would have been highly educated inside Egyptian society – a society that at the time was a leader in terms of technology and learning. This place was highly advanced society in 1500BC (around the time of Ramses II) – a lot of the stuff that we see in Egypt today, some 3,500 years later, are the amazing structures, painting, and other archaeological finds that either existed, or were being designed or built, at that time.
Moses escaped to the desert after killing an Egyptian who was abusing one of Moses’ countrymen, and it was in the desert that he got married. Moses ended up spending a long time working for his father-in-law (before leading the Hebrews out of Egypt), and we could be forgiven for viewing Moses’ time in the desert as a negative experience. Forty years of sheep and sand, working for a father in law who treated Moses like a slave. That could be viewed as “negative”!
One day God comes and has a chat with Moses, speaking out of a burning bush. You know the story. But stop and have a think about what was really going on in Moses’ mind…
It is hardly surprising that, after 40 years in desert with sheep, Moses says to God that he cannot go back and talk to the Egyptian king (despite the whole burning bush thing). Moses refusal to go back to Egypt makes me wonder whether he suffered from a physiological speech impediment, or whether it was more to do with anxiety arising from his perception that he could not compete in intellectual terms and speech with the king and the wise men and sorcerers. I surmise that I would be a freaked out and (at the very least) develop a speech impediment at the thought of having to go and mix it up with a group of Egyptian wise men that had such command of the black arts that they could throw a wooden stick on the ground and have it turn into a snake!
As I read on (in Exodus 4), I began to think that maybe Moses was suffering from poor self-esteem. God did a number of miracles back to back for Moses to prove He was with Moses, but Moses argued with God, saying that the people wouldn’t listen to him, that he couldn’t talk properly, etc. God had given Moses the power to perform miracles, but Moses still keeps on arguing, at which point God gets really angry and tells him to engage Aaron to speak for him.
Just a reminder - Moses was the most humble man that God had ever dealt with – and given that humility is not a human characteristic, that humility must have been developed in him. This humility that Moses had was specifically mentioned in the bible – it is mentioned so prominently that it must have had some real significance. In fact, it was a defining characteristic.
Now that I’ve somewhat cryptically introduced Moses (without explaining too much about his humility) we’ll come back to him in just a moment and look at what it was all about, but I need to choke you with scripture first!
What’s the bible say about humility?
I said I needed to question my concept of humility, and to do that I went back and looked at the scriptures that might help.
I mentioned Galatians 5 that says that humility is a fruit of the Spirit – so we know that it’s something we can’t simply generate or develop on our own. So before moving on, I’m going to blast you with a whole stack of “humility” scriptures to look at…
Ephesians 4:1-3 I therefore, the prisoner for the Lord, appeal to and beg you to walk (lead a life) worthy of the [divine] calling to which you have been called [with behavior that is a credit to the summons to God's service, living as becomes you] with complete lowliness of mind (humility) and meekness (unselfishness, gentleness, mildness), with patience, bearing with one another and making allowances because you love one another. Be eager and strive earnestly to guard and keep the harmony and oneness of [and produced by] the Spirit in the binding power of peace.
Philippians 2:3 Do nothing from factional motives [through contentiousness, strife, selfishness, or for unworthy ends] or prompted by conceit and empty arrogance. Instead, in the true spirit of humility (lowliness of mind) let each regard the others as better than and superior to himself [thinking more highly of one another than you do of yourselves].
1 Peter 5:5 Likewise, you who are younger and of lesser rank, be subject to the elders (the ministers and spiritual guides of the church)--[giving them due respect and yielding to their counsel]. Clothe (apron) yourselves, all of you, with humility [as the garb of a servant, so that its covering cannot possibly be stripped from you, with freedom from pride and arrogance] toward one another. For God sets Himself against the proud (the insolent, the overbearing, the disdainful, the presumptuous, the boastful)--[and He opposes, frustrates, and defeats them], but gives grace (favor, blessing) to the humble.
Deuteronomy 8:2 And you shall [earnestly] remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and to prove you, to know what was in your [mind and] heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.
Proverbs 11:2 When swelling and pride come, then emptiness and shame come also, but with the humble (those who are lowly, who have been pruned or chiseled by trial, and renounce self) are skillful and godly Wisdom and soundness.
Luke 14:11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled (ranked below others who are honored or rewarded), and he who humbles himself (keeps a modest opinion of himself and behaves accordingly) will be exalted (elevated in rank).
Romans 12:16 Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty (snobbish, high-minded, exclusive), but readily adjust yourself to [people, things] and give yourselves to humble tasks. Never overestimate yourself or be wise in your own conceits.
James 4:6 But He gives us more and more grace (power of the Holy Spirit, to meet this evil tendency and all others fully). That is why He says, God sets Himself against the proud and haughty, but gives grace [continually] to the lowly (those who are humble enough to receive it).
The concept of “Self-X”
You’re probably drowning about now in all these scriptures…pretty much the same way that I did! I went away and “soaked” in these concepts for a while, trying to distil everything down into something I could hook into.
I began to think about what was at the other end of the spectrum to humility, and the bible talks at length about pride, arrogance, high-mindedness, selfishness, etc, and these things seem to be the counterpoint to humility. So boiling all that down, what I came up with was one simply concept – the concept of “Self-X”…..
So, lot’s of things starting with “self”! More thinking followed, and all the “self’s” reduced down into just one item….SELF-SUFFICIENCY. This might sound a bit strange, but all will become clear (or clearer at least)!
These two things (humility and self-sufficiency) are at opposite ends of a fairly broad spectrum. Whilst I may not think of myself as proud, conceited and arrogant, I have no defence against the charge that I try (consistently, and in lots of ways) to be self-sufficient.
The reason that I settled on self-sufficiency as the counterpoint to humility is because of the dictionary definition of self-sufficiency…
self-suf-fi-cient
- able to supply one's own or its own needs without external assistance:
- having extreme confidence in one's own resources, powers, etc.
See, now I’ve made life difficult…it was kind of easy to get around pride and arrogance (because we don’t like to think that we’re that kind of person) but when I start thinking of self-sufficiency I have a much harder time avoiding the issue.
Let me back up my proposed concept from scripture…
1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world--the lust of the flesh [craving for sensual gratification] and the lust of the eyes [greedy longings of the mind] and the pride of life [assurance in one's own resources or in the stability of earthly things]--these do not come from the Father but are from the world [itself].
Paul implies in Philippians that without a “true spirit of humility” we will act from factional motives, or prompted by conceit and empty arrogance. Peter twists the knife and equates a lack of humility with an attitude of pride, arrogance, etc. In Ephesians, Paul equates “humility” with “lowliness of mind”. Add in the above scripture in 1 John, and what we end up with is this – a humble person is a person that is not self-sufficient, and has none of the “self-x” characteristics.
Humility is a state of being where our tendency for self-sufficiency is put on hold… we suspend our self-sufficiency. And not just temporarily. It has to become part of my character, and something that cannot be stripped from me, even in situations where my own self-sufficiency seems to be more than adequate for and equal to the challenge.
I quickly add that the self-sufficiency that I’m talking about here is the type where we think that we can do it all on our own i.e. we think we don’t need God, or more appropriately, we think we don’t ALWAYS need God.
Let’s take self-motivation (an element of self-sufficiency) as an example:
- A self-sufficient person has self-motivation…they set their mind to the task at hand and drive themselves through sheer determination, confidence and focus on the outcome
- They don’t need someone telling them to “go for it” - they are already on the road “going for it”
- They undertake the task without the need to be prodded or supervised.
Does this seem like a bad thing – at first glance not so much. But looked at from the viewpoint of impossible living, where we are a “spirit-first” being, and our life perspective are focussed on the spiritual rather than the natural, it’s actually quite a bad thing. This is because self-motivation:
- is dependant on our own internal desire and energy to get motivated;
- focuses on the things that satisfy our own natural desires (attain something good or avoid something bad);
- can often result in us refusing to hear appropriate criticism or counsel;
- is generally maintained by focus on a pre-defined outcome.
(MORE TO COME)
Linking with purpose
I’m going to dig into the idea of purpose a bit more later, but just at this stage I remind you of what I said earlier in the manifesto…that God has a comprehensive purpose for us that goes down to the fine detail of our lives. It’s not just a “big picture” purpose – God has a purpose in every hour, every minute even, of our lives.
(MORE TO COME)
Why humility is a good thing
We might give some sort of mental consent to the fact that humility is a good thing, but do we truly think that humility is a good trait to have? Put aside your standard “good Christian” response for a moment…do you really think that humility is a good trait to have, or do you think it’s just one of those characteristics that we are obliged to have as Christians? Is it just the “cost of doing business” as a Christian?
(MORE TO COME)
Deny the battle
OK, while I’m on a roll, let me make another bold admission. I like my self-sufficiency - it’s one of my defining characteristics. So this new concept of pride and humility has started to become a real challenge, since I am “wired” to be self-sufficient.
I can’t escape from what the bible says – that there are two ways of approaching life:
- I can be self-sufficient (which is quite bluntly another way of saying I am proud, arrogant, opinionated, wise in my own mind, reliant on my own resources, capable of keeping things under control, etc); or
- I can be humble (which is pretty much the opposite of everything I just mentioned).
- I am constantly concerned for my own well-being, so I want enough self-sufficiency to solidify my own position (self-preservation).
- My happiness is important, so I want to have enough self-sufficiency to determine my own path (self-determination).
- The world is not out to do me any favours and will tell me I can’t do things, so I need enough self-sufficiency to keep going when everything is against me (self-motivation).
And on and on it goes.
There is a particular and inescapable “by-product” of self-sufficiency – CONFLICT.
Because all these self-x factors are self-focussed, I end up in various levels of conflict everyday with something or someone. My interests, my self-x factors, will invariably clash with other people. Now, maybe you don’t think you’re quite as aggressive as I am making myself out to be, and that may well be the case. But even in our personal lives, away from the demands of work, we experience conflict when what we want doesn’t match with what someone else wants. And conflict is an incredibly destructive, distracting, and energy-sapping thing to have in your life…which is why Satan loves it and uses it to full effect.
James 4:1-3 What leads to strife (discord and feuds) and how do conflicts (quarrels and fightings) originate among you? Do they not arise from your sensual desires that are ever warring in your bodily members? You are jealous and covet [what others have] and your desires go unfulfilled; [so] you become murderers. [To hate is to murder as far as your hearts are concerned.] You burn with envy and anger and are not able to obtain [the gratification, the contentment, and the happiness that you seek], so you fight and war. You do not have, because you do not ask. [Or] you do ask [God for them] and yet fail to receive, because you ask with wrong purpose and evil, selfish motives. Your intention is [when you get what you desire] to spend it in sensual pleasures.
According to James, conflict inevitably arises when my own desires override everything else. Why? Because my desires are inevitably selfish – I want things that are good for me, I am prepared to expend significant amounts of energy to get them, and (quite frankly) what I want is more important than what you want! (Oh, did I say that out loud?)
This conflict is an incredibly strong thing – it’s at the heart of human nature because we are “hard-wired” to seek after the things that make us happy and that fulfil our own desires. Self-sufficiency is in our DNA - you can’t easily escape from this because it’s human nature. But what you can do though is “deny the battle” by allowing your spirit to be dominant.
How is this possible?
Your spirit is not motivated by your natural desires and tendencies because it’s the part that is responding to God. Basically, your spirit and God’s Spirit become “linked” with common purposes and desires. This creates space for God – it gives God the opportunity to empower you – the Holy Spirit is able to work with and in you – this results in the Spirit’s character becoming evident in you (i.e. the fruit of the Spirit).
Because of that, the conflict dissipates…when your spirit (linked with the Holy Spirit) is dominant, you remove yourself from the field of battle - your desires are not clashing with someone else’s desires because you have exchanged self-sufficiency for reliance on God.
So to answer the question…how is this possible? I have found that the best way to start to let my spirit link with God is to adopt the “traction” principles that I previously outlined.
How things progress from that point onwards becomes a bit more “specialised” – what I mean is that, having started with the acknowledge/include approach, God absolutely starts to point you in the right direction. By “right” I don’t mean your “preferred direction” or even “comfortable direction”. I mean that your heart starts to tune in, slowly and unsteadily at first but with increasing clarity and confidence, to God’s voice. A sudden awareness that you should do something; a knot in your stomach when you go to do something you shouldn’t; your heart suddenly because concerned about some person; there is a motivation to undertake a certain task or go a certain way. Small steps lead to bigger steps. But you’ve got to start stepping.
You can’t be humble – you are made humble
What I mean by this is that you simply cannot be humble in your own strength – it is created as a result of the Spirit living in you. Great, we have an excuse not to be humble – clearly I am not humble (and have to be self-sufficient) because God isn’t generating humility (and reliance on the Spirit) in me.
Do you really think that you’re going to get away with that!
Yes, it is true that humility is a fruit of the Spirit, and results from the Spirit living in us, but do you wonder why God’s character isn’t more evident? I mean, if God is living in us, and He’s so powerful, and has such an amazing personality, wouldn’t you think that God’s character would overtake everything?
It comes back to the fact that God has created us with the capacity to choose, and in this case our capacity to choose is focused on how much space we allow God. So read on…
You’ve only got so much space
Whilst we have been saying that living in the spiritual realm is a much bigger way of living, the fact remains that you’ve only got so much space in your life. There are many things that we have to pack into our day, and there are only so many hours.
As a result, what we try and do is create “life slices” – parts of our life that we set aside for God…and other areas that we set aside for us (because we “need our space”). The slicing varies, but at any given point in time, our lives can divide up this way. Sure, God’s involved…but only in those slices we permit at any given time.
There are any number of ways that we both do this and justify this – I’m not going to give examples but I’d like you to think about it. Are there those times when God simply doesn’t even get a thought? Let me twist the knife…are there those times when you think about God, but make a decision that this is your time, your activity, your money, your relationship, your hard-earned break?
The “Two masters” dilemma
You might have read this verse (about a million times)…
Luke 16:13 No servant is able to serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will stand by and be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (riches, or anything in which you trust and on which you rely).
Another one of those scriptures that we’ve come to accept more or less on face value – we generally employ it when we want to communicate that the love of money is evil. In fact, that’s usually the only situation in which we use it. But the implications of this scripture are more extensive, and it goes to the heart of the whole humility issue. “Mammon” is more than money – it’s anything that you rely on and anything you trust in. Roll back to the self-x factors…things like self-motivation, self-reliance, self-determination require large amounts of “mammon”.
If you read on (vs.26) Jesus talks about the birds that don’t sow, reap or gather…yet God keeps feeding them (and the fact that we are more valuable).
The “two masters” scripture is not about the love of money – it’s about making a “sufficiency” choice – I can either choose to totally rely on my own resources or I can choose to totally rely on God’s resources. And the bible is indicating that we cannot “mix and match” our sufficiencies.
This change in where we focus our sufficiency is not proposed lightly – in fact, it goes entirely against human nature. It seems wrong. It doesn’t make sense. It seems pretty stupid to the average man, in fact.
Basically, the “slicing” changes – instead of life becoming a mix of “God space” and “us space”, we end up with something that looks a little the diagram below.
Hierarchy of Needs
One of the issues that I ran into with this view of humility is that it flies in the face of some of the foundational ways we work as humans, particularly when it comes to the way in which we prioritise our lives, how our needs are fulfilled, etc.
I keep boring you with psychology, but it’s useful because we can look at how the natural man operates then compare it with how God intends our “impossible life” to operate. Remember that we are still focused on humility…this is just a “small” sidetrack to highlight the importance of humility and how central and critical it is.
You might have heard of a guy called Abraham Maslow (April 1, 1908 – June 8, 1970), an American psychologist famous for developing what he called the hierarchy of human needs. Maslow contended that humans have a number of inherent and instinctive needs, arranged in a hierarchy (or pyramid) in terms of their potency. The lower the need is in the pyramid, the more powerful it is. The higher the need is in the pyramid, the weaker and more distinctly human it is.
Maslow proposed that unless the lower needs were fulfilled, the focus on the higher needs was put on hold.
The base of the pyramid is formed by the physiological needs, including the biological requirements for food, water, air, and sleep.
Once the physiological needs are met, an individual can concentrate on the second level, the need for safety and security. Included here are the needs for structure, order, security, and predictability. These safety needs manifest themselves in such things as a preference for job security, grievance procedures for protecting the individual from unilateral authority, savings accounts, insurance policies, Personal security from crime, financial security, health and well-being, safety nets against accidents/illness and the adverse impacts.
The third level is the need for love and belonging. Included here are the needs for friends and companions, a supportive family, identification with a group, and an intimate relationship. In the absence of these elements, many people become susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety, and depression.
The fourth level is the esteem needs. This group of needs requires both recognition from other people that results in feelings of prestige, acceptance, and status, and self-esteem that results in feelings of adequacy, competence, and confidence. Lack of satisfaction of the esteem needs results in discouragement and feelings of inferiority.
Finally, self-actualisation (i.e. the need to make the most of your abilities, striving to be the best we can, working toward fulfilling our potential, etc) sits at the apex of the pyramid. This includes stuff like:
- Clearer perception of reality
- Acceptance of self, others, and nature
- Spontaneity
- Problem-centering
- Detachment and the need for solitude
- Autonomy, independent of culture and environment
- Continued freshness of appreciation
- Deep interpersonal relations
- Democratic character structure
- Ethical means towards moral ends
- Philosophical, unhostile sense of humor
- Creativity
Personally, I like the sound of being “self-actualised” – it sounds like a pretty amazing way to view and live life. The only problem is that I have to get all the other levels of the pyramid sorted out before I can effectively get to that top self-actualisation level.
Which brings me back to my tendency to “life-slice” – I usually focus my energy on the lower levels of the pyramid because once I’ve got that sorted out then I’m far more useful to God – I can start to focus on the higher level stuff - or at least that’s how I have perceived things. Apparently I was wrong!
God’s hierarchy of impossible living
As with a lot of things we’re looking at in this manifesto, you can usually take the way that the natural man lives, turn it upside down and back to front, and you come up with the way that God intends us to live. So that’s what I did with the pyramid of needs…
What’s the implication of turning things around like this?
Firstly and most obviously, the “self-actualisation” comes before everything – it becomes the highest priority in our lives so that our energy is focussed on this before we think about anything else.Whilst Maslow and others have defined self-actualisation in quite comprehensive terms, I have defined it as one “simple” concept…humility.
How does this affect “slicing”?
Taking this approach to our needs affects the way in which we “slice” our lives – dramatically! In fact, what happens is that there is no slicing…none whatsoever.
(MORE TO COME)
Supply and demand
Philippians 4:19And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
Kind of comforting isn’t it to know how rich God is? It’s a concept that we’ve been taught as children – God owns everything, and all we need to do is ask Him for stuff!
Matthew 7:7-12 Keep on asking and it will be given you; keep on seeking and you will find; keep on knocking [reverently] and [the door] will be opened to you. For everyone who keeps on asking receives; and he who keeps on seeking finds; and to him who keeps on knocking, [the door] will be opened. …. If you then, evil as you are, know how to give good and advantageous gifts to your children, how much more will your Father Who is in heaven [perfect as He is] give good and advantageous things to those who keep on asking Him!
Then there’s the caveat (because you’ve always got to have an escape hatch if things don’t work out) – the principle that “Sometimes God says YES, and sometimes He says NO, and sometimes He says LATER”. Have you heard that from the pulpit? I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard it. So I checked the concordance…there is no scripture that says this. There is nothing scriptural to back up this “principle” that has been presented as a truth.
Keep reading on from where I left off in Matthew 7…
Matthew 7: 13-14 Enter through the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and spacious and broad is the way that leads away to destruction, and many are those who are entering through it. But the gate is narrow (contracted by pressure) and the way is straitened and compressed that leads away to life, and few are those who find it.
The “ask and keep on asking” scripture has an underlying and exceptionally powerful principle behind it that only comes to light when you read on to verses 13 and 14….the principle that we should not be self-sufficient…and that taking the path of “suspended self-sufficiency” is pretty much about what I talked about really early in the manifesto….the “tight squeeze”.
So no need for superannuation?
Clearly there is a discussion here about where being responsible about money and planning for the future fits into this picture – and I’m not suggesting that you simply ignore this requirement. In fact, it’s a biblical principle:
1 Timothy 5:8 If anyone fails to provide for his relatives, and especially for those of his own family, he has disowned the faith [by failing to accompany it with fruits] and is worse than an unbeliever [who performs his obligation in these matters].
But money is only part of the issue – whilst we need to eat (as do our families) we are talking about our need for both natural and spiritual resources.
Establishing the principle
It was interesting to read how Jesus sent the disciples (72 of them, not just the 12 main players) out into the countryside to minister, and He said to them to go out without taking money, baggage, etc.
Luke 10:4 Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.
Luke 22:35 Then Jesus asked them, "When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?" "Nothing," they answered.
There is was a reason for this – Jesus was telling these guys to suspend their self-sufficiency (which they did, to their credit). Jesus “closes the loop” (12 chapters later!) at the Last Supper, pushing the point home.
Humility and wisdom
There is another link here…
James 3:13 Who is there among you who is wise and intelligent? Then let him by his noble living show forth his [good] works with the [unobtrusive] humility [which is the proper attribute] of true wisdom.
(MORE TO COME)
Humility is part of God’s personality
Humility is a central part of God's character - it's one of the defining characteristic of Who God is, and in part this characteristic explains why God acts the way He acts. This is true of all the characteristics spelt out in Galatians 5 (the fruit of the Spirit) – this scripture gives us a great insight into what God’s character is like.
Now that’s a pretty wild concept – that God could be humble – after all, He created everything, has infinite power, etc. Why would God be humble? I can understand Him demanding that we be humble, but it’s a little more difficult to imagine God being humble.
This challenged me to go back and look at my concept of humble, having got a bit of background on Moses.
Matthew 11:29 Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest ( relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls.
Philippians 2:5 Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus: [Let Him be your example in humility:]
