True biblical wisdom teaches us that God hates proud eyes, but he cherishes the humble. There have been several times in the past when I’ve attempted to compliment people for their work. I once told a young preacher, what a 24 humble heartgreat job he did. He said, “don’t thank me, thank the Lord.” I once told a soloist how I enjoyed her song. She said “don’t thank me, thank the Lord.” After hearing that several times, I’ve decided whenever I attempt to encourage or bless someone in response to their work or effort and they say something like that to me, I just reply, “well, it wasn’t that good!.” Chuck Smith writes, “True humility is not a false attempt to deflect praise when you have done something well. If you have played a marvelous game or made a great speech or landed a new position, and somebody praises you for your effort, it is not humility to hang your head and say, ‘Oh, it was nothing.’ That’s false humility that pretends something God enabled you to do was of no importance or value. Such feigned humility does not glorify God.”

C. S. Lewis described humility as “a state of mind in which (a man) could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best and rejoice in the fact, without being any more glad at having done it than he would have been if it had been done by another.” Smith goes on to describe what true humility might look like. He writes, “Such humility doesn’t come naturally. For instance, on a soccer team true humility means that you would have great joy if you scored three goals, but that you would feel the same joy if someone else scored the goals! In music ministry true humility means that you would have great joy in singing a solo to the glory of God, but you would have the same joy if someone else was chosen and sang it equally well. For a pastor genuine humility means that you can have joy in God’s blessing on your ministry, but you would experience the same joy in hearing that God had poured out even greater blessing on one of your brothers.”

Pride blanches when someone else gets the promotion. Pride squirms when others are praised. Pride sees things through green eyes of jealousy and even rejoices or is secretly glad when another business fails or someone’s bad decisions result in the expected consequences. Paul tells Titus (Titus 3:2) how mature Christians must “show true humility to everyone.” One commentator says, “In the original the word ‘humility’ is qualified by the word ‘all’ producing the ‘true humility’ of the NIV. This humility is to be shown ‘toward all men,’ i.e., toward the world in general, toward Christians and non-Christians, toward enemies and friends.” This is true wisdom! Solomon tells us, “do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles, lest the Lord see it and be displeased…” God hates the “haughty look.” God loves a humble heart!