BE LIKE JESUS
The Humility of Jesus: Greatest Who Serves
He knew exactly who He was — and He used that certainty to kneel down and wash someone else's feet.
Humility is not smallness — it is security
Most of us were taught that humility means not thinking too highly of yourself. Don't brag. Downplay your accomplishments. Defer to others even when you know more. That version of humility is exhausting and not particularly Christlike.
Jesus was not characterized by self-doubt. He debated the most educated religious scholars of His day and consistently outmaneuvered them. He spoke with authority — "not as the scribes." He declared Himself the Son of God with enough confidence that it was the charge that got Him crucified. He knew exactly who He was.
And He washed His disciples' feet. He was born in a stable. He spent thirty years in obscurity. He rode into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey. In Gethsemane He prayed: "not my will, but thine, be done."
The humility of Jesus is not the humility of someone who doesn't know their own worth. It is the humility of someone so secure in their identity that they don't need status, recognition, or the best seat at the table to know who they are. They can serve because their worth doesn't depend on being seen serving. They can submit because their security doesn't depend on being in control. That is the target. Not smallness — security.
Washing the disciples' feet
John 13 begins with a statement of context that is critical to understanding the scene: "Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God; he riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments; and took a towel, and girded himself." (John 13:3-4)
He knew who He was. He knew where He had come from and where He was going. From that position of total security — knowing everything was in His hands — He knelt down and washed His disciples' feet. The most powerful person in the room chose the act reserved for the least powerful person in the house. Not because He was confused about His own status. Because He was free from it.
Peter objected: "Thou shalt never wash my feet." He could not reconcile the Master kneeling before him. Jesus said: "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me." Then Peter asked for his hands and head as well. Jesus told him the feet were sufficient, and then He told them why He had done it:
"Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him." (John 13:13-16)
The logic is clear. The greatest person in the room served. Therefore those who follow Him serve. Not because it is required of the lowly — but because the greatest one set the pattern.
"Knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands — from that position of total security — He knelt down and washed their feet."
Born in a stable, riding a donkey
Philippians 2:5-8 is Paul's theological description of what the Incarnation required: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men." The phrase "made himself of no reputation" is literally "emptied himself" — kenosis. He who was God took the form of a servant. Not performance. Not theater. An actual choice to set aside the exercise of divine prerogative to live as a human being.
This began before the ministry. He was born not in a palace but in a stable, to a young woman in an occupied territory. His first visitors were shepherds — the lowest-status workers in the economy — sent by angels. He grew up in Nazareth, which was a regional joke ("Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" — John 1:46). He spent thirty years in obscurity doing carpentry before three years of public ministry. Most kings make their entrance at the beginning of their story. Jesus's entrance was thirty years in.
When He finally rode into Jerusalem in what we call the Triumphal Entry, the crowd wanted a military messiah who would overthrow Rome. He came on a donkey — the specific animal chosen to fulfill Zechariah 9:9: "thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass." Lowly. The word was not accidental. He could have ridden a war horse. He chose a donkey to say something specific about what kind of king He was.
"Not my will, but thine" — humility at the limit
The deepest act of humility in the Gospels is not foot-washing. It is Gethsemane. Jesus prayed: "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." (Matthew 26:39) He prayed the same prayer three times. The dread was real. He asked for another way.
He submitted anyway. Not because He had no will of His own — He clearly did, and He was honest about it. But because He trusted the Father's will over His own. That is the summit of humility: total submission not because you are incapable of resistance but because you trust the One you are submitting to.
This is also the model for every follower of Christ who has ever prayed for something and received a different answer. "Not my will, but thine" is not resignation or passivity — it is the deepest kind of trust. It is saying: I have my preference, I'm honest about it, and I trust You more than I trust my own judgment about what should happen.
The Book of Mormon on humility
King Benjamin is one of the most powerful rulers in Book of Mormon history — and one of the most striking examples of servant leadership. He works with his own hands so as not to be a burden on his people. He calls himself a mortal man serving a temporal king. And he delivers the most theologically dense sermon in the Book of Mormon from a tower, because the crowd was too large for him to address directly.
His most quoted line: "And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." (Mosiah 2:17) This is humility given a frame: service to people is not separate from worship of God — it is worship of God. The king who serves his people is not lowering himself. He is doing exactly what God does.
The Lord tells Moroni: "I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." The structure is precise: weakness produces humility; humility opens the door to grace; grace converts weakness into strength. The weakness is not an accident or a punishment — it is the specific mechanism God uses to create the conditions for transformation. The person who has never struggled cannot access this grace. The person who has struggled and surrendered it to God receives something the confident cannot.
King Benjamin's description of the path: becoming "as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." This is not the list of a doormat — it is the list of a person so secure in their Father's love that submission is safe. A child who trusts their parent submits not because they are weak but because they know the parent can be trusted. The humility here is the humility of trust, not the humility of defeat.
How to practice humility without self-deprecation
Humility is not a performance of smallness. It is a posture of security that makes serving others natural rather than self-diminishing. Here are specific, practical ways to develop it.
Know your identity before you enter the room
Jesus washed feet from a position of knowing who He was. Humility that comes from insecurity is unstable — you serve until someone fails to notice, and then you feel resentful. Humility that comes from security is durable — your worth is not connected to being seen. Daily prayer and Scripture anchors your identity in what God says about you, which makes you less dependent on external validation.
Ask rather than tell
One of the most practical habits of humility is genuine curiosity about others — asking about their experience, their perspective, their knowledge, before offering yours. Not as a social technique, but as a real acknowledgment that other people know things you don't. James 1:19 — "swift to hear, slow to speak" — is humility in its most daily form.
Take the lower seat
Luke 14:10 — Jesus taught, when invited to a feast, to take the lowest place and let the host seat you higher rather than assuming prominence. Practically: volunteer for the tasks no one notices, sit with the people no one is sitting with, give credit to others before claiming it yourself. These are not tricks. They are habits that form a humble person over time.
Submit your plans honestly to God
Proverbs 3:5-6 — "lean not unto thine own understanding." Practically, this means bringing your plans to God in prayer and genuinely asking for correction rather than just confirmation. "Not my will, but thine" is a prayer that should be prayed over decisions, not just crises. The habit of submitting plans and preferences to God's direction is the practice that produces the character of Gethsemane — willingness to yield when God's answer is different from your request.
Receive correction without defensiveness
Proverbs 12:1 — "Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge: but he that hateth reproof is brutish." The ability to receive criticism — from God, from a spouse, from a friend, from a boss — without becoming defensive is one of the most reliable indicators of genuine humility. It requires the same security that Jesus had at the foot-washing: knowing your identity well enough that a correction doesn't threaten it.
Name your weakness and bring it to God
Ether 12:27 is the promise: weaknesses that are brought to God in humility become strengths. The practice is naming them honestly — in prayer, in a journal, in a trusted relationship — and submitting them rather than hiding them. The person who cannot admit weakness cannot receive the grace that converts it. The pride that insists on self-sufficiency cuts off the supply of the only help that actually works.
The Week She Stopped Having the Answer
A team leader at a mid-sized company had built her reputation on being the person in the room who knew what to do. She was good at her job. She moved fast. In meetings, she generally had the direction figured out before others had finished processing the problem. Her team produced results. They also, she eventually realized, had stopped bringing her their best thinking — because there wasn't much point. She would arrive at the answer before they got there.
She decided to run an experiment for one week. Before offering any opinion in a meeting, she would ask "What do you think?" first, and then — this was the harder part — she would actually wait. Not think about her own answer while they spoke. Actually wait, with attention, for what they said.
The first day was uncomfortable. She sat through two meetings with ideas fully formed in her head and did not say them. A colleague offered a direction she would have dismissed in twenty seconds. She sat with it for the full ten seconds she had promised herself. It turned out to be better than her idea, combined with a piece from someone else in the room.
By Friday, two people on her team had offered suggestions they had apparently been sitting on for months. One of them said, afterward, "I didn't think you'd be interested in that." She had been. She just hadn't made space for it. Jesus asked "What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?" — even when He already knew. The question made room for the person. Humility, she found, was not thinking less of herself. It was thinking of herself less — enough to genuinely hear what was already there.
Try This Before Sunday
Find one situation this week — a meeting, a family dinner, a conversation — where you would normally offer your opinion first. Don't. Ask someone else what they think instead. Then sit with whatever they say for a full 10 seconds before you respond. Notice what it feels like to wait, and what you hear when you do.
Track your daily practices in Covenant Path — set a reminder, journal what you notice, and watch your consistency build over time.
Questions about humility
What does the Bible say about humility?
Philippians 2:3 — "in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves." Matthew 23:11-12 — "But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted." Proverbs 11:2 — "When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom." James 4:10 — "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up." Humility is consistently presented in Scripture as the posture that attracts God's help and produces exaltation — the inverted logic of the kingdom where the last are first.
How did Jesus show humility?
Through the Incarnation (emptying Himself to take human form), being born in a stable, spending thirty years in obscurity, being baptized alongside sinners, washing His disciples' feet the night before His crucifixion, riding a donkey rather than a war horse, praying "not my will, but thine" in Gethsemane, and submitting to arrest and execution without using His power to escape. Every one of these was a choice made from a position of knowing exactly who He was — which is what makes them humility rather than ignorance.
Is it humble to accept compliments?
Yes — deflecting compliments can be its own form of pride, drawing more attention to your humility. The biblical model is to receive genuine appreciation graciously and credit God for the capacities He has given you. C.S. Lewis's description is useful: the humble person is not someone who thinks poorly of themselves, but someone who thinks of themselves less — they are too interested in other people and in God to be preoccupied with their own reputation either positively or negatively.
What does the Book of Mormon teach about humility?
Ether 12:27 frames weakness as a gift given specifically to produce humility, and humility as the condition under which God's grace converts weakness into strength. Mosiah 2:17 shows King Benjamin modeling servant leadership — the powerful man who works with his own hands and teaches his people that serving others is serving God. Mosiah 3:19 describes the Christlike character as a child's trust: "submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him."
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