Humility

Humility is simply recognizing that, when it comes to the things of God, none of us "know our right hands from our left," in the words of Jonah the prophet.  No matter how smart, or how educated, we are, the things of God remain entirely hidden to us on the natural level.  Jesus often told the Apostles, "How slow you are to understand..." 

Jesus told Nicodemus, a leader in Israel, that unless a man be born again of water and the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God.  Many people take this saying to mean that we must be water baptized, but I think there is a much deeper meaning.  Paul said that a man is not a Jew if he is outwardly circumcised, but only if he is circumcised in his heart.  There are many baptized people who have not experienced either the "water of the Word" or the power of the Spirit of God.

In the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul says that the man without the Spirit does not accept the things of God, nor can he.  The Spirit, he says, searches the deep things of God [what is in God's heart] and reveals them to us.  In the second letter, Paul says, "to this day, a veil remains over their [the Jews'] hearts when the Gospel is read.....but we, with unveiled faces are being transformed from glory to glory."

Jesus promised the disciples that they would receive "power" [the Greek word dunomis is the base word for our English "dynamite"] when the Holy Spirit came upon them.  The power, or dynamite, He referred to was the "power" or ability to comprehend the things of God, to overcome the darkness that surrounds us, to demolish strongholds, to build up and to tear down.  No wonder Paul says that men ought to regard us as servants entrusted with the secret things of God.

Humility means recognizing that we must be taught, that the things of God cannot be figured out, but must be revealed to us.  Jesus said that we must receive the kingdom as little children, those who know they do not already know, but who are willing to be taught.  The Holy Spirit is the One who "takes the things of Jesus and gives them to [us]" (Jn. 14).  We know nothing, we understand nothing, until the Spirit Himself begins to reveal to us the secrets of God.

So......that means cultivating a friendship with the Spirit who dwells within us.  Flesh and blood cannot reveal to us the deep things of God, but they must be revealed to us, as they were to Simon Peter.  Knock, seek, ask----and the door will be opened, for it "pleases the Father" to give us both the Spirit and the kingdom.