Tuesday, April 8, 2025

Listen to the Word

For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. (Matthew 23:12)

Jesus says you have a couple of options: you can exalt yourself and let God humble you, or you can humble yourself and let God exalt you.

If you focus your efforts on making yourself the center of attention and maximizing your personal public approval ratings, God will take it on himself to bring you down a notch or two. That doesn’t sound like it would be pleasant. But if you practice the healthy self-forgetfulness of humility, if you pay more attention to God and to other people than you do to yourself, then God will take it on himself to lift you up.

I can remove “exalt Blake” from my to-do list. God wants to handle that task for me. If I’ll spend more time loving others and less time in self-promotion, he will lift me higher than I could ever lift myself.

Live the Word

Spend a moment in prayer, asking God to point out examples of the truth of today’s Scripture that are evident from your own life or from the lives of those around you. Where have you seen this principle demonstrated?