Tim Chester on humility and the cross

The pardon of the cross creates a humble confidence in those who believe. Humble confidence might sound like a contradiction. Like warm ice. Or a desert that blooms. But our humility and our confidence are looking in different directions.

Our confidence comes when we look to God in the light of the cross. We see in the cross God's great declaration of his love to us and the legal status of that love. We discover that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And that gives us confidence in the face of sin, suffering and death. Indeed it's this confidence that enables us to be humble because we don't need to assert ourselves.

Meanwhile, humility comes when we look at ourselves in the light of the cross. There we discover that we're rebels against God. When we get the chance, we murder our Creator. That's what we are like. We discover our desperate need for grace. We're humbled. So when we see a messed-up, struggling person we don't see someone inferior. We see ourselves. We see a sinner like us in desperate need of God's grace.

Tim Chester, The Ordinary Hero: living the cross and resurrection (IVP 2009, pp.32-33)