God’s Grace in Our Lives—2

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (1 Peter 5:6).  We cannot do anything in the Christian life without God’s grace.  Because grace is all important, any verse that tells us how we can get it merits our greatest attention.  From this verse we learn that God opposes those without humility.  The opposite of this is God actively working on our behalf.  God blesses the humble.  Unless we are humble, we will never experience God’s power in our lives.  Thomas Brooks relates humility to  our afflictions and God’s glory: “The humble soul endeavors more how to glorify God in afflictions, than how to get out of them.  Daniel, the apostles, and all the others of whom the world was not worthy were such.  They were not seeking to get out of their afflictions but were concerned for the glory of God.  They were willing to be anything and bear anything that God might be glorified.  They made it their business to glorify God in great adversity.  The humble soul says: ‘Lord, keep down my sins, and keep up my heart to honour you in all my troubles.’”  In contrast, the proud person, who is utterly self-centered, will do anything to be free from hardship.  Nothing will satisfy the proud person’s inflated lusts.  But with Christ in the heart, the humble are content with very little.