Heroes of the Faith, Part 9Sample

Humble Yourself

Bible story: Nebuchadnezzar - Daniel 4

Theme verse: 1 Corinthians 4:7

Now in Heroes of the Faith, we’ll look at a great king and how God humbled him. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had a terrible dream and asked a man of God named Daniel to interpret it for him. The interpretation was that the king would go crazy and lose his mind and live outside like an animal eating grass. A year later, King Nebuchadnezzar boasted that he had built the great city of Babylon for his own majesty.

When God uses you to do cool stuff in your life, it will always be easy to look around at the amazing things that God does through us and forget that it all came from God. The truth is that none of us is better than anyone else, because everything we have – gifts, talents, abilities, training growing up, and opportunities in our lives – all come from God (1 Corinthians 4:7). Jesus also said that we cannot do anything good without Him (John 15:5).

God was the one who placed Nebuchadnezzar as king, and He could just as easily have placed someone else as king. God decides what cool things He will do in your life, and He could just as easily do them through someone else. The moment king Nebuchadnezzar boasted, he lost his mind just like in his dream and lived outside like the animals and ate grass. He was there long enough for the hair of his head to look like feathers and for his fingernails to grow long like the claws of a bird. Think about how slowly your fingernails grow. That was a long time!

Then king Nebuchadnezzar looked to heaven and recognized that God oversees it all, and God restored him to his kingdom and made him even more powerful. But you don’t have to take that long to humble yourself. We are all sinners, and pride is one of the easiest sins to get stuck in, especially when God does cool things through you! Even if you are tempted every day, do your best to look to heaven and recognize that every good thing you have is a gift from God (James 1:17). You can ask God for help, because He loves you and wants what’s best for you. God can help you stay humble.

Daniel also suggested something to the king that can help us to humble ourselves. Daniel said to be kind to the oppressed. It’s hard to be proud when you are busy thinking about how to help other people. You can look around at your brothers and sisters in Christ and recognize the cool things God is doing through them, too, not comparing yourself to them but encouraging them and celebrating with them. God gives us all different gifts (1 Corinthians 12:4-6), and God will do cool things through all of us, however He wants to do it.

I choose to humble myself and recognize God’s power and authority in my life.

Questions:

1. Why can we not say that we have accomplished everything in our own strength?

2. How is humility good for me?

3. If I did not accomplish or gain what I have, who did?

Application to life:

Think of the opportunities you have had and the good things in your life. Thank God for them. Then think about someone who might take your place and pray for them and ask God to bless them in that position and do good things in their life, too.