Give Him Thanks Humbly

Ray Ortlund post:  Up down, down up

Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low.  Isaiah 40:4

Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.  Luke 14:11; 18:14

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. . . . Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.  James 4:6, 10

It’s all through the Bible – God bringing low the proud and self-justifying but honoring and raising up the meek.  This being so, wherever we are at any given moment, we can expect God to flip us.  If we are high, and okay with that, he will bring us low.  If we are low, and okay with that, he will bring us high.

The only way to face the future is to stay low and surrendered to him with no strings attached, eager to be “fully pleasing to him” (Colossians 1:10).  The One who is high and lifted up dwells in the high and holy place (where we cannot go), and he also dwells with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit (where we can go) (Isaiah 57:15).

The best way – not the only way, but the best way – to steward the historically significant blessing God is giving in our time – this delightful nexus of TGC/T4G/SGM/A29/etc – is to bow down before the Lord, give him thanks humbly, confess our sins honestly, listen to one another carefully, monitor our own hearts constantly for that impulse toward self-exaltation and bring it crashing down immediately in self-rebuke.

The Lord will do all he has promised.