Session 4 Getting in Your Place

Knowledge Objectives Explain why a continual sense of dependence characterizes the Christlike believer. Explain why humility is the hallmark of the believer’s sense of dependence upon God. Identify several ways God humbles His children.

Application Objectives Respond by being able to define “biblical humility.” Respond by committing yourself to letting God teach you the dependency of your “creatureliness.” Respond by more quickly recognizing when God is trying to teach you Christlike dependence and humility through the circumstances of life.

Session 4 Getting in Your Place

Dependent by Design God made man dependent. Any attempt to live independently from God is doomed to failure. Change must move man away from autonomy and toward dependence. Creation demands dependency. Nebuchadnezzar illustrates the destructive nature of self-sufficiency.

Humility—the Hallmark of Dependency “Humility is simply [man’s]. . . yielding to God His place.” No man who has been humbled before God is self-justifying, self-protective, or self-confident.

Live the Christian Life the Same Way You Got It Humility is not only the start of the Christian life; it is the start of everything godly in the Christian life. Be “clothed with humility.” Our aversion to humility is testimony of the poverty of our understanding of God’s ways.

How Does God Humble Us? He can send us a problem we can’t handle to expose our helplessness. He can give us a command we won’t obey to expose our self-centeredness. He can arrange an outcome we can’t control to expose our sinfulness. He can show us a God we can’t comprehend to expose our finiteness.

Potential A man’s potential for God lies not in his ability, nor in his opportunity, but in his humility.