A Gracious Woman Loves and Follows Jesus

The gracious woman attains honor - the merciful man does himself good. This is taken from Proverbs 11. Last Tuesday we looked at what it means to be gracious. I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Is graciousness the aroma that permeates what I say and do? Gracious living obviously benefits me and it magnifies who God is and manifests His work of grace in my life to others. If I am going to be a gracious woman, I need to remember Jesus. I need to look at Him and meditate deeply upon His life and death and resurrection; and on His work's effect on me and all mankind.

As I have endeavored to think more deeply about Jesus as Pastor Matt exhorted us to a few weeks ago, humility has been on the forefront of my mind. I am recognizing how little I pursue humility and even understand what humility is as I look at Jesus. I have become convinced that unless humility is present to some degree in my life, graciousness (kindness, usefulness, tenderness, mildness, compassion) will absolutely not be present. If my family, friends and others see me as an ungracious person (unkind, useless, harsh, hard nosed, haughty, etc.) in my speech, actions and attitudes, I can be certain I am not pursuing humility. I might even question to what degree I love and follow Jesus - do I even have the right to say I do without bringing shame to His name? If I want to be a gracious woman, I need a major helping of humble pie! Humility is key to being gracious.

Proverb 11:2 says: When pride comes, then comes dishonor, but with the humble is wisdom. A proud woman will never attain honor because God gives grace to the humble, but He opposes the proud; He will ultimately dishonor them ( 1 Peter 5:5 ). I want humility in order to be given grace - the grace I need daily from God. If I want to start pursuing humility I need to start by pursuing Jesus.

Philippians 2:5-8 says: Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking on the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. This Jesus we claim to follow and love dearly was humble. His great humility is worthy be exalted and ultimately was by the Father. This humility that caused Him to be obedient to the point of dying an incredibly shameful and excruciating death on behalf of those who hate Him, shun Him, and disobey Him has given a hope that does not disappoint. (Romans 5:5) Jesus is our hope of eternal salvation. It is all according to His grace. And in order to say we love and follow Jesus we must pursue Jesus by pursuing humility. I can say that a gracious woman loves and follows Jesus because He was the ultimate example of what I call extreme humility; and if we love Him we will follow this gracious and humble example and delight in doing so.

Everything that is said from here on out about what a gracious woman looks like, will flow from humility that is a result of loving and following Jesus.

Oh, Lord please transform me into a gracious woman so that you are highly exalted and your great love, mercy, and compassion for sinners is obvious to those around me. Amen!