God Will Promote You—But Only If You Do This First

Excerpted from 10 Principles of Godly Leadership.

For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted (Luke 14:11).

Jesus told a parable about a man who had a feast (Luke 14:7–11).

He said the man invited all of these people and watched as they came in. They began promoting themselves to sit as close to the host as possible. They wanted seats of honor. But the Lord said that’s not the way the kingdom of God operates.

In these kinds of situations, a Christian ought to assume a lower seat. That way, the host won’t have to humiliate you and embarrass themselves by asking you to move if a dignitary comes in. Instead, in taking the lower place, the host might end up saying, “Come up higher and take a place next to me.”

I’ve seen this happen in my own life. When I first got started in ministry, I remember trying to prove that I was right. I thought I was just sharing the truth with people, but it was really about me needing to feel secure. When someone said something that countered what I taught, I had to win the argument to feel like I was right. If I couldn’t feel right, then it shook my faith in what I was believing.

During that time, my friend Joe Nay really blessed me. He gave me a word from the Lord and said he saw me as if I were running a race on a track. I was out in front, leading the pack, but there were people yelling at me from the grandstands and saying I was doing it all wrong. Joe said he saw me getting off the track and going into the stands to argue with the crowd. He told me, “You may win the argument, but you will lose the race.”

Sometime later, I was attending a meeting where Joe was ministering. Before each of his sessions, Joe would call me on stage. I wasn’t ministering, but he invited me to greet the people and say something.

On the last night of those meetings, I was invited on stage again. And, in front of hundreds of people, a man I knew came running up to me. He apologized and said, “I’ve been telling people that you’re of the devil! For days, you’ve been coming up here, and this whole time God has been convicting me of the things I’ve said about you.” He was begging for my forgiveness, crying, and even kissing my boots. It was quite a spectacle!

Now, if I had fought back against those kinds of accusations, there’s no way I would have gotten that kind of reaction. I humbled myself, God convicted this man, and our relationship was put back together. I let God exalt me. I humbled myself and focused on my relationship with the Lord, allowing Him to call me up to a higher place.

Take Your Time

Back when my meetings were smaller, I used to spend time ministering to people individually. I’d often give them prophecies and pray over them. Now, I don’t do that as much because our meetings are much larger, and I don’t have time to meet with everyone. We’ve since trained prayer ministers to handle a lot of the one-on-one ministry that I used to do.

Years ago, I was in a church, ministering to pastors, and I asked people to come up for prayer. There was a line of about twenty people and this one man was first in line. When I stepped off the platform, I just didn’t feel like I should pray for him. So, I skipped him and started ministering to the second person. I went down the row and prophesied to every one of the other ministers there.

When I got down to the end of the row, this man had come around the line and was standing there. When I saw him, I just turned around and started walking back up on the platform. That’s when he grabbed me and asked, “Why won’t you pray for me?” And I said, “You don’t want me to pray for you.” But he responded, “Yes, I do! I want anything that God has for me!”

So, I began to prophesy to him. I said, “The reason God’s not using you is because you are not usable. It would destroy you and ruin your ministry if you got the opportunities you are seeking.” I went on to say, “You don’t have the maturity. You need to just stay in the presence of God and grow. And when you get to the place where God can use you, He’ll open up the doors.”

It turns out this man had come out from a homosexual lifestyle. He believed he was led to minister to homosexuals, but he just wasn’t ready for it. He wasn’t that far along in his relationship with God to be ready for that kind of ministry. It seemed like he received what I was saying, but when the first opportunity came along, he kicked down the door. He tried to make ministry happen in his own strength. And he went ahead of God.

The last time I saw this man, he had totally turned against the Lord. He was so bitter because things didn’t work out the way he wanted them to. It was exactly like what I had said to him in that meeting. He just wasn’t ready. He didn’t humble himself and wait for due time to be exalted by God.

Wait for God’s Best

Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart (Psalm 37:4).

Carrie Pickett is the Executive Vice President of our ministry along with her husband Mike, and they oversee all of our Charis Bible Colleges around the world. She teaches one of the best things I’ve ever heard on the subject of humility.

She was raised in the little town of Kit Carson, Colorado, and grew up in Lawson Perdue’s church. That’s where she first learned about our ministry. Later, she attended Charis Bible College and eventually left everything she knew to become a missionary to Russia in her early 20s. She was instrumental in building up the Charis campuses in that country.

I heard her say one time that when most people think about their lives, it’s like they write on a sheet of paper everything they are looking for in a mate, ministry, and life—all of their desires. And then, at the bottom of the page, they sign their name, present it to the Lord, and ask Him to sign it.

That’s just the way that most people live. They give God a list of everything they want and then try to draw God into a contract. They just want the Lord to bless whatever they’re doing without really finding out what He wants for their life.

But Carrie teaches that if the Lord were to meet with us, He would take a blank sheet of paper, push it across the table, and say, “Now you sign this, and let Me fill in the details.” And that’s exactly what Carrie did! She sought God and waited for His very best for her life.

Because she humbled herself, Carrie was obedient to the Lord when He called her to Russia. And while she was there, she ended up meeting Mike, who was also an American and a Christian. Carrie left her home and everything she knew, trusting that the Lord had the very best in store for her—even though she couldn’t see it herself. She trusted that God would give her the desires of her heart; not just what she desired, but God’s desires would become her desires.

Everything in our ministry has come about because I humbled myself. I realized God is smarter and wiser than I am. I just let His desires become my desires. And those are the things I pursued. We don’t just follow trends and do what other ministries are doing. It’s not that what they are doing isn’t good, but I’m not going to do something unless I believe the Lord has told me to do it. I let Him place a desire in my heart, and I follow through on it.

The Lord will not just force you to do anything. You have to choose to be obedient to His will. And that begins with humbling yourself.