Humble Submission that Glorifies God

May 29, 2025

Many years ago, I was called to the hospital where I met a man with an incurable lung disease. The doctor thought he would die in the next 24 hours. The man gave his life to Christ, and I prayed for a healing miracle. The next day, he was packing up to go home. He felt great, and an early morning x-ray revealed his lungs were completely healed. It was one of the first miracles God worked through my feeble prayers and it was life changing for both of us.

In my earliest days as a minister, I was skeptical of miracles and I certainly never expected to be used by God to do any miracles. Today, I am intrigued by stories like Paul’s healing miracle in Acts 14:8-10, “In Lystra there sat a man who was lame. He had been that way from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, ‘Stand up on your feet!’ At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.”

I marked the verse in bold because it challenges us to look deeper. How did Paul know the man was ready to be healed? To understand this, let’s look at three of the main barriers to being used by God to do miracles.

The first barrier is arrogance vs. humility. Jesus is the perfect example of humility (Philippians 2:5-11). Arrogance is probably the biggest barrier to being used by God in any ministry. We may even start out humble but, as we let God use us, we begin to think that we are somehow special. We are not. The humble servant of the Lord wants God to be glorified and nothing else. I like to think of it like we are holding a mirror in front of our face. If someone looked at us they wouldn’t see us, or even notice us. They would see a perfect reflection of God, and glorify Him alone.

The next barrier is control vs. submission. Our natural inclination is to try to control every situation, if not completely, then to some degree. In the text above, Paul was submitted to the power of Holy Spirit, who gently whispered to his soul that the man had the faith to be healed. Because he was submitted to the Spirit, he could stop speaking and say something so outlandish that it could only happen by the power of Holy Spirit, and it happened at that moment because Paul was completely obedient. It was the Spirit that revealed that this man was ready to be healed. Paul had relinquished control to the Spirit, and a great healing occurred. Most people would have never stopped their teaching to utter something so unlikely as the healing that took place, except if they were completely submitted to Holy Spirit.

The final barrier I want to focus on today is rebellion vs. humble submission. If you are a Christian that continues to sin, and don’t we all, then you have a rebellious spirit that must be tamed. What are the areas of your life that you refuse to humbly submit to the Lord? You must be able to answer this question to open the doors more and more to being used by God. You may not become free of the sins that are at the heart of your rebellion, but God will honor your humility and desire to submit to Him and can still use you.

I remember a time when I walked into a situation where I sensed that the Lord wanted to do a healing miracle. I tried to do, say, and pray the things that had worked in the past, but nothing happened. Afterward, I spent some extended time in prayer and the Lord reminded me that I hadn’t done that in a while. Having let my prayer life weaken, I did not have any anointing oil with me. I also forgot to text my prayer team to pray during the healing session, which God had made clear was necessary. I had broken all the barriers and saw no healing. I have no doubt, had He blessed the person with a healing miracle, I probably would have dropped the mirror, so the healed person could see my face.

Are you a humble person? How do you know? Are you very good at submitting yourself to the Lord? How do you know? In what ways are you rebellious toward the Lord? If Holy Spirit whispered to your soul would you hear Him? Would you be obedient? Let us take time to answer these questions carefully so our lives and faith will better exalt Holy Spirit’s work through our lives. (To learn more about Al Earley or read previous articles, see www.lagrangepres.org. You can purchase my book, My Faith Journal, at Amazon.com, a compilation of 366 articles as a daily devotional).