The Necessity of Humility

I am currently doing a Bible study called "Seeking Him: Experience The Joy of Personal Revival." This is my second week working through it, and it has proven to be very convicting so far. This week's study was entitled "Humility: Coming to God on His Terms." Honestly, when I began the study on Monday I was thinking to myself that I was a pretty humble guy. I mean I am not one of those loud arrogant people. It hasn't taken long this week for God to convict me of my own pride and self-focus. CS Lewis once said, "If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realize that one is proud...If you think you're not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed."
As I looked at various Scriptures this week one thing was clear is that God is not a fan of pride. Psalm 10:4 says the pride keeps us from seeking God. Proverbs 8:13 says that God hates pride and arrogance. Proverbs 16:18 warns that pride goes before destruction. Obadiah 1:3 tells us that our pride deceives us. James 4:6 states that God opposes the proud. The authors of the devotional I am doing states that, "pride is a roadblock to revival." They later add, "Pride blinds us to our true spiritual condition and causes us to think more highly of ourselves than we should. ... Pride keeps us at a distance from God." Pride hinders our intimacy with God and keeps us from truly seeking Him because it leads to a faulty self-sufficient and self-righteous mindset. When pride creeps in we are less likely to humbly seek God in repentance and brokenness and neediness before Him.
God is drawn to humility. Isaiah 57:15 says, "For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite." 2 Chronicles 7:14 states, "If my people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." God responds to humility. We can have intimacy with the God who "inhabits eternity" when we come in humility.
I have got to get to the office so I will leave with one last quote to think about. Jonathan Edwards once said "A truly humble man is sensible of his natural distance from God; of his dependence on Him; of the insufficiency of his own power and wisdom."