The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 5:6 to humble ourselves before the mighty hand of God:
“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time”
What does it mean to humble ourselves?
The best definition of this comes from the life of Jesus and the Bible tells us in Philippians 2:8 how Jesus humbled Himself:
“He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross”
Jesus humbled Himself by being obedient to death. Obedience and humility are always tied together. The reason is because whoever we obey, that’s who we are saying (with our actions) is the master of our life. When someone calls somebody ‘master’ they are saying ‘I am lower than you, so what you want me to do is more important than what I want to do’. That’s humility before God.
If I obey the Lord, I am saying ‘you are more important than me.’ If I obey myself, what I am really saying to God is ‘in this situation, You are not the most important person – I am. In this situation – I am the master.’ The first sin ever committed was by the devil, and it was the sin of pride. He was saying the same thing: ‘I will lift myself up above you God, I am most important.’ (Ezekiel 28:2)
An attitude of pride (‘I am most important’) always manifests itself as disobedience, because if I consider myself more important than God, then that directly implies that my will for my own life is more important than His will for my life.
The Bible says “present your members to God as instruments of righteousness” (Romans 6:13). A Christian who is humble will not disobey with his eyes because he will have the attitude that “my eyes belong to God. What He wants my eyes doing is more important than what my flesh wants them to do.” And when a Christian brother looks away from a pretty woman in order not to lust after her, he is humbling himself and saying “Lord, you are the master of my eyes, not me. My eyes bow down to you, and I am bowing down to you.” So we tell the Lord that we belong to Him by presenting ourselves and all our members to Him in humility. “My tongue belongs to you Lord so I will not speak evil, my mood belongs to you Lord, so I will not be quick to anger, my desires belong to you so I will not covet money, even my mind belongs to you - what you want me to think about is more important than what I want to think about.”
Obedience – presenting all our members, even our whole selves to God, is the way we say to Him: “Lord, you are everything, and I am nothing.”
If this life of obedience sounds like a terribly burdensome life, it’s not - it’s the exact opposite. It’s a celebration of what He’s done for us. Laying down our life for Him is the greatest celebration of His love we can do, and it is a joyful celebration. The wonderfully amazing thing about our Christian life with God is that unlike all the many religions of the world, this is never a burden of rules and regulations in order to attain our right standing with God (which has already been attained for us by our Lord Jesus), but simply because we love Him (1 John 5:3), and we want to please, celebrate, and live for the One who gave everything for us.