“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand,
that he may lift you up in due time.” (1 Peter 5:6)

It is odd to hear people boast of their humility before God. They tell us how they are the greatest of sinners and lowly before God. And yet, they are still sick, still have defective body parts, poor (or work 3 jobs, so that the only money they have is by human power), depressed, their neighbors, co-workers and family vex them. There is no sign of God’s miraculous power in their life; there is no sign of the gospel of Abraham on them. They look like outsiders to the Covenant. Basically, Satan steamrolls over them, and they have the audacity to call it humility before God.

Yet, Peter describes what happens to a humble person. God exalts them and lifts them up. What does Peter mean by God exalting someone in context of his own letters? Peter quotes Psalm 34 as an example of God blessing you. (read it). Four times the Psalmist says, “God delivers him out of ALL his troubles.” Let us say that 3 more times to get the weight of it. God delivers him out of ALL his troubles. God delivers him out of ALL his troubles. God delivers him out of ALL his troubles. Peter says by such promises (which include Psalm 34) we “Partake of the Divine Nature.”

Thus in context Peter’s own understanding of God lifting up and exalting someone is to “deliver them from all their troubles.” Peter also mentions in chapter 2 that “by His stripes we are healed,” which is understood by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 8:17) as bodily healing. We will not deal with genuine gospel persecution since that is a logical different category from troubles of life. To be healed is to partake of God’s promises, and to partake of God’s promises, is according to Peter, partaking of the divine nature.

Thus, it is delusional to claim you are humble by a biblical standard and not have God deliver you from all your troubles. Not possible.

You might look at your life and see that you are not delivered from all your troubles. Will you blame God or yourself? Will you throw off your responsibility given to you by God and caste it off? Will you free yourself from God’s burdensome commands to be healed, helped and delivered from all your troubles. Will you call what is humble, proud and will you call what is proud, humble, in order to hide your failures? Will you negate the bible, or will you negate your own calculations? If you are truly a child of God, then do not be bitter at your Father’s discipline. He loves you. It is meant to help and build you up. He wants you to be helped and blessed more than you want it. It’s not Him you need to convince, its your own unbelief that needs to be convinced of His love and faithful promises.

Here is the big idea. Humility starts with your starting point for knowledge. Humility starts with knowledge and faith; it does not first begin with behavior. The bible is the sole standard of good and evil. The bible says sickness(Acts 10:38, Deut. 28:61) is evil and healing is good. Because Jesus died for sickness as a substitutionary atonement (Isaiah 53:4-5), so that He took on our sickness (the bad) and we have the healing (good), it would trample the blood of Jesus to call sickness good. It is the same with poverty (bad) and wealth (good). Jesus was a money substitute for our poverty (bad) (2 Corinthians. 8:9) and gave us His wealth (good). Thus to call poverty (good) and wealth as (bad), is to spit on the substitutionary atonement of Jesus. It is the same with sin, which is (bad) and righteousness, which is (good). Jesus was our substitute for our sin (bad) and gave us His righteousness (good).

Just because Jesus said if you have been forgiven much, then you will love much, does not make sin good. This does not make lots of sin good, just because the result led to a person loving much. Just because poverty (bad) kept a person from forsaking God, does not make poverty good. You can simply not forsake God by faith in His word. To have wealth(good) so that Abraham’s blessing makes you happy, and you give richly to the kingdom is always good.

The same with other categories such as sickness and healing. Just because Jesus said this man’s sickness was designed to give an opportunity for God’s power to work, does not make the sickness good. Jesus healing was called “works of His Father,” which is good, and did not include the sickness as part of His Father’s work. In fact, the bible commands us to be healed (James 5:14-15). To obey God is always good, and thus, to be healed is always good and to stay sick is always bad. Therefore, it is evil to stay sick but it is good to be healed, in regards to your accountability before God.

Thus, the only way to “humble” yourself before God if you are sick, for example, is to regard your experiences and observations about sickness as garbage and horse s#5@. This is putting off the old man and his old way of thinking. Then you put on the new man. You replace your trash experience and trash observation with the superior word, commands and promises of God. You repent of human speculation over God’s Word, and start to read, meditate, and confess the promises of God about healing. This is how you begin to “humble” yourself under God’s mighty hand. And as Peter says, God will then lift you up and exalt you. Imagine the God of Gods, the king of kings exalting you! Truly nothing in this world compares to it. No one can exalt you the way God is able to do so.

Look at Job at the end of his life. Double the wealthiest guy in the whole area. Excessively wealthy. Double long life. Many children. This is a man who God exalt. This was a humble man. Moses was a humble man, and God exalted him to be the leader of Israel. Joseph was humble and God exalted him in one day to the right hand of Pharaoh. Look at all the people in the gospels and Acts who humbled themselves with faith in God’s healing promise. God delivered them ALL from their sickness troubles. All of them. We are not talking about the obvious examples of God exalting sinners for the day of slaughter. Thus, show me a man whom God has exalted, and I will show you a humble man. Why is this the case? Because if you humble yourself, God will exalt you.