AM I HUMBLE OR IS IT INFERIORITY COMPLEX? #asq360 #christianlife

Inferiority complex, according to the Collins dictionary, is when someone feels they are of less worth or importance than other people. This is often characterized by aggressiveness or withdrawal into oneself.
Humility, according the Cambridge dictionary is the feeling or attitude that you have no special importance that makes you better than others.
Now that’s the dictionary definition, but as Christians we need to see these terms from God’s lens/word.
The concept of inferiority complex is a secular term which the bible tags as ‘self’ in one of its manifestations. An example of someone who exhibited inferiority complex is Gideon. We see in Judges 6: 11-16 that after the angel appeared to Gideon and informed him that he was chosen to rescue Israel from the Midianites, his response “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh and I am the least in my entire family” is a clear expression of inferiority complex. Another example is Barak. Deborah gave him the Lord’s command for him to lead the battle against king Jabin and his army. But what was his immediate response? “I will go, but only if you go with me”. Now that’s the sound of low self-worth, which is synonymous with inferiority complex. Even Moses, had the same feeling of inferiority when he protested against Gods’ assignment of him to his people in Egypt. “Who am I to appear before Pharaoh? Who am I to lead the people of Egypt” were his very words?
Coming back to the word humility, I would like to break the word humility as an understanding of who you are, what you are worth and yet not rubbing it in the faces of every other person. it is an ‘awareness’ of what you possess or who you are, but also a knowing that everything I am is in Christ Jesus, everything I have is by God’s grace, basically putting God at the centre.
Most Christians are familiar with the ‘résumé’ of Apostle Paul. In 1 Corinthians 15:10-11, we hear Paul’s remark, “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me”. Here, Paul is saying, “look, I know who I am oh, I know my worth in this race, for I really worked hard and there are results to show for it. However, it is not I but grace. He is calling our attention to the fact that no matter how much I know I have attained as a Christian and even in my occupation, no matter how much I have laboured to produce the results that I see today, it is not I but God’s grace. This is humility. Let me give you another example. We see in Luke 1: 30-38, After the angel appeared to Mary and told her of God’s mission through her, she only tried to question the possibility which was ‘how can it be since I am a virgin?’ and after the angel explained to her, her response was ‘I am the Lord’s servant, may everything you have said about me come true’. We see Mary acknowledging the power of God to work his wonders in the life of a ‘servant’ like her.
Let us also see Moses, yes, Moses, I know I have given an example of him exhibiting inferiority complex. Yet, later on, he encountered God in amazing ways that he later on exhibited extreme humility as seen in Num11: 28-29. Moses though knowing how highly God had placed him did not think of himself more highly as to be the only one that God could and should speak through. One would finally understand why God in the next chapter (Num 12:3) spoke of Moses as humble, humbler than any man on the face of the earth. Moses was a man that finally understood who he was, knew the power he wielded yet always acknowledged and gave God all the glory and honour. This new Moses is not the same earlier Moses, who was so conscious of certain knowledge of himself, that he was finding it difficult to allow the supremacy of Gods word to reign over him.
From the passages above we see that inferiority complex is centred on self. Therefore, one would also appreciate why the bible keeps telling us that we need to get rid of ‘self’ Mathew 16:24- Then Jesus said to his disciples, “if any man should come after me, let him deny him- ‘self’ and take up his cross and follow me “As Christians we need to drop whatever ideology we have about who we are and begin to look at embrace who God says we are and by doing this you exercise faith. For without faith no man can please God, therefore thinking of you in a way God doesn’t and by extension not believing in God’s word isn’t humility but rather a form disobedience, disbelief hardening of heart and of course, inferiority complex.
In one sentence, I’ll answer this question this way: inferiority complex focuses on self, humility focuses on God

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[danielbulus]

Believing in the report of the Lord concerning us is true HUMILITY!

[timothyachema]

Well done! This was very enlightening. Production is top notch too! Would it be possible to add subtitles to the videos? I know it would be a lot of work but I belive we'd be able to reach a larger audience with that. Secondly, is it possible to extend these videos to TikTok? I think we can find a very large population of a young demographic on that platform.
More grace!
Blessings!