Welcome to today's encouragement from our daily bread.

Today's reading titled Mortality and Humility was written by Wynne Collier.

Ancient scholars Jerome and Tertullian reference stories of how in ancient Rome, after a general triumphed in an epic victory,

he would parade atop a gleaming chariot down the capital's central thoroughfares, from dawn to

sunset. The crowd would roar. The general would bask in the adoration, reveling in the greatest

honor of his life. However, legend has it that a servant stood behind

the general the entire day whispering into his ear, Memento Mori. Remember, you will die. Amid all

the adulation, the general desperately needed the humility that came with remembering

that he was mortal.

James wrote to a community infected with prideful desires and an inflated sense of self-sufficiency.

Confronting their arrogance, he spoke a piercing word in James Chapter 4, saying,

God opposes the proud, but shows favor to the

humble. What they needed was to humble themselves before the Lord. And how would they embrace this

humility? Like Roman generals, they needed to remember that they would die. You do not even know what will happen tomorrow, James

insisted. You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. And owning their

frailty, freed them to live under the solidity of the Lord's will rather than their own fading

efforts. When we forget that our days are numbered,

it can lead to pride. But when we're humbled by our mortality, we see every breath and every

moment as grace. Memento Mori.

Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from James

Chapter 4 verses 7 through 17.

Submit yourselves then to God.

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