Humility is

So I closed yesterday with the statement of what Humility is. That definition and much of my thoughts this week come from a book I am reading entitled, "Humility, True Greatness." It's written by C.J. Mahaney who is considered one of the top pastors and theological thinkers of our time. That definition was:
Humility is honestly assessing ourselves in view of God's holiness and our sinfulness. Humility is those times when we come to grips with the fact that we are totally and completely inadequate for anything we attempt to accomplish outside of the power of God.
One thing C.J. says we have to come to grips with in order to gain true humility is the ransom that was paid. In Biblical times if a servant's ransom was paid they now belonged to a new owner and were indebted to the new person who had paid the ransom. As sinners we technically belonged to the world, but once Jesus CHrist died on a cross and raised again we became in debt to Him alone. To fully understand that is to allow God to instill in our lives a true reality of what Humility is. To come to grips with the amount of sin still in our lives as new creations in debt to a Savior is very important. Until we realize the debt, what the debt meant, and how it was truly paid for we cannot experience the true greatness of owning a Christlike humility.
Look at the lives of James and John two of JEsus' closest followers and strongest leaders. They were completely full of pride, so much so that they argued over who was the greatest among the disciples. They were comparing themselves to the other disciples and figuring one of them was a shew-in for the greatest disciple award. They were both accepting MVP awards from their leader in their own minds. We already discussed what they said and how Jesus reacted yesterday, but at some point each of them changed completely.
They went from prideful, self-confident MVP's of the disciple world to completely humble servants of Christ. In part because of what Jesus said to them during their argument but mainly because of one major event in their lives. In the Epistles of John he is a completely different man, later we see James and how much he has changed. Pride doesn't even seem to rear its ugly head, and as for self-confidence there is none to be found after one certain event. Have you guessed what that event was? Jesus death on the cross. After Jesus died on the cross they fully understood their sin, their pride and most importantly their place. Once they had been ransomed from sin they were completely new people.
So, if you truly want godly and biblical humility you need to look at the cross. Until you see yourself as an endentured servant ransomed from sin and from flesh you will never acheive such humility. Sure you can be humble in the world's eyes, but is that really worth anything? I don't think it is.