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WORLD WIDE MINISTRY OF RESTORATION,
INC.
Restoration heals the broken-hearted
and
makes the captives free!!
Subject: HUMILITY
Chapter 1
God as the ever-living, every-present, ever-acting One, who upholds all things by the word of His power, and in whom all things exist, meant that the relationship of His creature to himself would be one of unceasing absolute dependence.
Humility, the place of entire dependence upon God.
And so pride—the loss of humility—is the root of every sin and evil.
Nothing can save us but the restoration of our lost humility.
Humility is the only soil in which virtue takes root. Humility is not so much a virtue along with the others, but is the root of all because it alone takes the right attitude before God and allows Him, as God, to do all.
It is not something that we bring to God, or that He bestows, it is simply the sense of entire nothingness that comes when we see how truly God is everything.
When the creature realizes that this is a place of honor and consents to be—with his will, his mind, and his affections, the vessel in which the life and glory of God are to work and manifest themselves, he sees that humility is simply acknowledging the truth of his position as creature and yielding to God His place.
In the life of earnest Christians who pursue and profess holiness, humility ought to be the chief mark of their uprightness. It is the first and chief of the relationship of the creature to God, of the Son to the Father—it is the secret of blessedness, the desire to be nothing that allows God to be all in all.
Humility is not something that will come of itself, but that it must be made the object of special desire, prayer, faith, and practice.
There is nothing so insidious and hidden from our sight, nothing so difficult and dangerous as pride. And acknowledging that nothing but a very determined and persevering waiting on God will reveal how lacking we are in the grace of humility and how powerless we are to obtain what we seek. We must believe that when we are broken under a sense of pride and our inability to cast it out.
Chapter 2
It is pride that made redemption necessary; it is from our pride that we need, above everything else to be redeemed. And our insight into the need of redemption will largely depend upon our knowledge of the terrible nature of the power of pride that has entered our being.
IT is of utmost importance that we study to know and trust the life that has been revealed in Christ as the life that is now ours, and waits for our consent to gain possession and mastery of our whole being.
In view of this, it is important that we know who Christ is, especially the chief characteristic, that is the root and essence of His character, as our Redeemer. There can be but one answer: It is His humility. If humility is the secret of His atonement—then the health and strength of our spiritual life will depend entirely upon out putting this grace first and making humility the chief quality we admire in Him, the chief attribute we ask of Him, the one thing for which we sacrifice all else.
Manifestations of temper and touchiness and irritating feelings of bitterness and estrangement have their root in nothing but pride.
Let us honestly fix our heart on our lack of humility.
This is the secret hidden root of redemption. Believe with your whole heart that Christ, whom God has given you, will enter in to dwell and work within you and make you what the Father would have you to be.
Chapter 3
We have already said that this virtue (Humility) is nothing but the simple consent of the creature to let God be all, the surrender of itself to His working alone.
He (Jesus) was nothing that God might be all. He said I am nothing; I have given myself to the Father to work. He is all.
This life of entire self-abnegation, of absolute submission and dependence upon the Father’s will. His humility was simply the surrender of himself to God to allow Him to do in Him what He pleased, regardless of what men might say of Him or do to Him.
It is in this state of mind, in this spirit and disposition that the redemption of Christ has its virtue and efficacy.
…the acknowledgment that self has nothing good in it, except as an empty vessel for God to fill.
He teaches us where true humility begins and finds its strength—in the knowledge that it is God who works all in all, that our place is to yield to Him in perfect resignation and dependence, in full consent to be and to do nothing of ourselves.
The root of all virtue and grace, of all faith and acceptable worship, is that we know that we have nothing but what we receive, and how in deepest humility to wait upon God for it.
He (Jesus) never for a moment sought His own honor or asserted His power to vindicate himself. His whole spirit was that of a life yielded to God. When we study the humility of Jesus as the very essence of His redemption, as the blessedness of the life of the Son of God, and as the virtue Jesus gives us if we are to have any part with Him, we will begin to comprehend how serious it is to lack humility in our lives. Are you clothed in humility?
Chapter 4
Their thoughts must be of the cup and the baptism of humiliation. Whoever wants to be the first must be your slave. The greatest among you will be your servant. Humiliation is the only ladder to honor in God’s kingdom.
“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 14:1-11)
The authority of command and example, every thought, either of obedience or conformity makes humility the first and most essential element of discipleship.
I cannot say how few attain to some recognizable measure of likeness to Jesus in his Humility. But few ever think of making it a distinct object of continual desire or prayer.
…to know that we may yield ourselves as servants, as slaves to God to find that His service is our highest liberty, the freedom from sin and self.
…Jesus calls us to be servants to one another, and that as we accept it heartily; this service will be a most blessed one, a new and fuller deliverance from sin and self.
IF we learn that to be nothing before God is the glory of the creature, the spirit of Jesus, the joy of heaven, we shall welcome with our whole heart the discipline we may have in serving even those who try or annoy us. When our own heart is set upon this true sanctification, we will study each word of Jesus on self-abasement with new zeal, and no place will be too low, no stooping too far, and no service to mean or too long if we may share and prove the fellowship with Him who said, I am among you as one who serves.
See that you humble yourselves, and take no place before God or man, but that of a servant.
Just as water seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds the creature empty, His glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless.
My one need is humility. As the meek and lowly One, He will come into and dwell within the longing heart.
Chapter 5
…We have seen the occasions on which the disciples proved how much they lacked the grace of humility.
1st – is the fact there may be the enthusiastic and active practice of
Christianity while humility is still sadly lacking
Humility is a virtue that only comes in power when the fullness of the Spirit makes us partakers of the indwelling Christ and He lives with in us.
2nd – is the reality that external teaching and personal effort are
powerless to conquer pride or create the meek and lowly heart in a person.
…no sense of the beauty of humility, however, deep, no personal resolve or effort, however sincere and earnest can cast out pride. Nothing works but this, that the new nature in its divine humility be revealed in power to take the place of the old—to become our true nature.
3rd – is the revelation that it is only the indwelling of Christ in His
divine humility that we can become truly humble.
We have our pride from Adam; we must have our humility from Christ. Pride rules in us with incredible power: it is ourselves, our very nature. Humility must become ours in the same way; it must be our true selves, our very nature. It must become natural for us to become humble.
He received from the Father an entirely new life, the life of man in the power of God, capable of being communicated to me, and entering and renewing and filling their lives with His divine power. In His ascension He received the Spirit of the Father, through whom He might do what He could not do while upon earth—make himself one with those He loved, actually live their life for them, so that they could live before the Father in humility like His own.
…grasp the fact that the absence of humility is no doubt the reason why the power of God cannot do its mighty work: It is only where we, like the Son, truly know and show that we can do nothing of ourselves that God will do everything.
…that the church will put on her beautiful garment and humility will be seen in her teachers and members as the beauty of holiness.
Chapter 6
To be genuine, humility must abide in us and become our very nature. In God’s presence, humility is not a posture we assume for a time—when we think of Him or pray to Him--but the very spirit of our life.
The simply insignificant acts of daily life are the tests of eternity, because they prove what spirit possesses us. To know a truly humble person, you must follow that one in the common course of daily life.
Humility before God is nothing if it is not proven in humility before others.
Honor one another above yourselves. (Romans 12:10)
Love—and there is no love without humility as its root—does not boast, it is not proud…It is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. Live a life…completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in Love. Always giving thanks…Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Honor one another above yourselves: serve one another, consider others better than yourselves; submit to one another.
True humility comes when before God we see ourselves as nothing, having put aside self, and let God be all. The soul that has done this, and can say, I have lost myself in finding you, no longer compares itself with others. It has given up forever any thought of self in God’s presence; it meets its fellowmen as one who is nothing and seeks nothing for self; who is a servant of God and for His sake is a servant of all. The humble man looks upon every child of God, the most weak and unworthy and honors him and prefers him as a son of the King. The humble person feels no jealousy or envy. He has learned that in putting on the Lord Jesus he puts on the heart of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and long-suffering.
Paul put it, “a heart of humility,” the sweet and lowly gentleness recognized as the mark of the Lamb of God.
…His humility and gentleness will be the streams of living water that flow from within us.
Let the discovery of the lack of this grace (humility) stir us up to greater expectation from God. Let us look upon everyone who tries us as God’s means of grace. God’s instrument for our purification, for our exercise of humility of Jesus….by God’s power we will serve one another in love
Chapter 7
The great test of whether the holiness we profess to seek or to attain is truth and life will be whether it is manifest in the increasing humility it produces.
In Jesus—the Holy one of God—divine humility was the secret of His life, His Death, and His exultation. The one infallible test of our holiness will be our humility before God and others. Humility is the bloom and the beauty of holiness.
The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is its lack of humility. Every seeker after holiness needs to be on his guard lest unconsciously what was begun in the spirit is perfected in the flesh, and pride creep in where its presence is least expected.
And the tax collector will find that his danger is not from the Pharisee beside him, who despises him, but the Pharisee within, who commends and exalts himself.
Pride can clothe itself in the garment of praise or of penitence. It is seldom remembered that deep humility must be the keynote of what we say of ourselves or of each other.
There are countless assemblies of saints, mission conventions. . . where the harmony has been disturbed and the work of God hindered because men who are considered saints are touchy and impatient, self-defensive and self-assertive, to the point of sharp judgments and unkind words. They do not reckon others better than themselves, and their holiness has little meekness in it.
In their spiritual history, men may have had times of great humbling and brokenness, but what a different thing this is from being clothed with humility from having a humble spirit, from having that lowliness of mind in which each counts himself the servant of others and so shows forth the mind that was in Jesus Christ.
Our text is a parody on holiness! Jesus the Holy One is the humble one: the holiest will always be the humblest. There is none holy but God: we have as much holiness as we have God. And according to what we have of God will be our real humility, because humility is nothing but the disappearance of self in the vision that God is all.
. . .there comes the power of a perfect love that forgets itself and finds its blessedness in blessing others.
There is no pride so dangerous, so subtle and insidious, as the pride of holiness. “Stay away from me; I am too sacred for you!” It isn’t always seen in self-assertion or self-praise, but in the absence of self-denial and modesty that reveals a lack of the mark of the soul that has been the glory of God. It is a tone, a way of speaking of oneself or others, in which those who have the gift of discernment cannot but recognize the power of self. Beware, lest we make a profession of holiness . . .while the mark of the presence of God—the disappearance of self—is obviously missing. Flee to Jesus and hide yourselves in Him until you are clothed with His humility. That alone is holiness.
Chapter 8
. . .humility is the very essence of holiness….the indwelling Christ through the Spirit is the health, light, and life of the soul. But with the conviction of helplessness tempers our faith with a sense of dependence that creates the proper humility in us and results in the greatest joy.
The more abundant the experience of grace the more intense the consciousness of being a sinner. It is not sin, but God’s grace showing a man and ever reminding him what a sinner he was that will keep him truly humble. It is not sin, but grace that will make me know myself as a sinner.
I am afraid that there are many who by strong expression of self-condemnation and self-denunciation have sought to humble themselves, but who have to confess with sorrow that a humble spirit with its accompanying kindness and compassion, meekness and forbearance, is still as far off as ever. Being occupied with self, even having the deepest self-abhorrence, can never free us from self. It is the revelation of God, not only the law condemning sin, but also by His grace delivering from it that will make us humble. The law may break the heart with fear; it is only grace that works that sweet humility that becomes joy to the soul as its second nature. It is the soul that finds God to be everything that is so filled with His presence there is no place for self. “The pride of men brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.” (Isaiah 2:11)
It is the sinner basking in the full light of God’s holy, redeeming love, in the experience of that indwelling divine compassion of Christ, who cannot but be humble. Not to be occupied with your sin but to be fully occupied with God brings deliverance from self.
Chapter 9
All that hinders the blessing being ours is pride or a lack of faith. How can you believe if you accept praise from one another? As we see how in their very nature pride and faith are irreconcilably at odds, we learn that faith and humility are at their root one, and that we can never have more of true faith than we have of true humility. It is possible to have strong intellectual convictions and assurance of the truth while pride is still in the heart, but it makes living faith, which has power with God impossible.
Humility is simply the disposition that prepares the soul for living in trust. Even the most secret breath of pride, in self-seeking, self-will, self-confidence, self-exaltation, is only the strengthening of that self that cannot enter the kingdom or possess the things of the kingdom because it refuses to allow God to be who He is.
Faith is the means by which we perceive and apprehend the heavenly world and its blessings. Faith seeks the glory that comes when God is all. As long as we take glory from one another, as long as we seek and love and jealously guard the glory of this life, the honor and reputation that comes from men, we do not seek and cannot received the glory that comes from God. Pride renders faith impossible.
It is humility that brings a soul to be nothing before God and that also removes every hindrance to faith and makes it only fear lest it dishonor Him by not trusting Him completely.
If there is failure in the pursuit of holiness, it most surely has pride and self at its root. We have no idea to what extent pride and self secretly work within us, or how God also by His indwelling power can cast them out. Nothing but the new and divine nature taking the place of the old self can make us truly humble. Absolute, unceasing humility must be the core disposition of every prayer and approach to God as well as every relationship with our fellowmen. Let humility be our one desire and our fervent prayer. Let us gladly accept whatever humbles us before God or men—this alone is the path to the glory of God.
I have spoken of some who have blessed experience or are the means of bringing blessing to others and yet are lacking in humility . . . they have a measure of faith in proportion to the blessing they bring to others. But the real work of their faith is hindered through their lack of humility. The blessing is often superficial or transitory because they by their failure to be “nothing” block the way for God to be all. A deeper humility would bring a deeper and fuller blessing. The Holy Spirit, working in them not only as a Spirit of power, but also dwelling in them in the fullness of His grace, and especially that of humility, would through them communicate himself to others a life of power and holiness and steadfastness as yet unseen.
You will be freed from the glory of men and of self and be content and glad to be nothing. Out of this nothingness you will grow strong in faith, giving glory to God and you will find that the deeper you sink in humility before Him, the nearer He is to fulfill every desire of your faith.
Chapter 10
Humility is the path to death, because in death it gives the highest proof of its perfection. Humility is the blossom of which death to self is the perfect fruit. Humility must lead us to die to self so we prove how wholly we have given ourselves up to it and to God; so alone we are freed from our fallen nature and find the path that leads to life in God, to that full birth of the new nature, of which humility is the breath and the joy.
The mark that shows the true follower of Jesus—is humility. For these two reasons; only humility leads to perfect death, only death perfects humility. Humility and death are in their very nature one; humility is the bud, in death the fruit is ripened to perfection.
Humility leads to perfect death.
In Christ you are death to sin; your life has gone through the process of death and resurrection. But the full manifestation of the power of this death in your disposition and conduct depends upon the measure in which the Holy Spirit imparts the power of the death of Christ. And here, it is that the teaching is needed; If you would enter into full fellowship with Christ in His Death, know the full deliverance from self, humble yourself.
…consent to the fact that you are powerless to slay yourself; give yourself in patient and trustful surrender to God. Accept every humiliation look upon every person who tries to or troubles you as a means of grace to humble you. God will see such acceptance as proof that your whole heart desires it. It is the path of humility that leads to the full and perfect experience of our death with Christ. Humble yourself unto death. It is in the death to self that humility is perfected. At the root of all real experience of grace and true advance in consecration is conformity to the likeness of Jesus which affects our dispositions and our habits. The reason I mention disposition and habit is that it is possible to speak of walking in the Spirit while there is still evidence of self. True humility will manifest itself in daily life. The one who has it will take the form of a servant. The Lamb of God means two things: meekness and death.
What a hopeless task if we had to do the work ourselves! Nature never can overcome nature, not even with the help of Grace. Self can never cast out self, even in the regenerate man. The death of Jesus, once and for all, is our death to self.
As the soul in the pursuit and practice of humility follows in the steps of Jesus, its consciousness of the need of something more is awakened, its desire and hope is quickened, its faith strengthened, and it learns to look up and claim that true fullness of the Spirit of Jesus that can daily maintain His death to self and sin in its full power and make humility the all-pervading spirit of our life.
His life will bear the two-fold mark: its roots in the humility of Jesus, death to sin and self; its head lifted up in resurrection power.
Claim in faith the death and the life of Jesus as your own. Enter into rest from self and its work--the rest of God. Every morning remind yourself afresh of your emptiness so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in you. Let a willing, loving, restful humility be the mark that you have claimed your birthright---the baptism into the death of Christ. “By one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy”. (Hebrews 10:14) The souls that enter into HIS humiliation will find in Him the power to see and count self as dead and, as those who have learned and received of Him, to walk with all lowliness and meekness, forebearing one another in love.
Chapter 11
It seems that Paul’s thorn in the flesh was sent to humble him so that he might not exalt himself as a result of the great revelations given to him. Paul’s first desire was to have the thorn removed, and he asked the Lord three times that it could better be manifested. Paul at once entered upon a new stage in his relationship to the trial: instead of simply enduring it, he gladly glorified in it: instead of asking for deliverance, he took pleasure in it. He had learned that the place of humiliation is the place of blessing, of power, and of joy.
Many Christians fear and flee and seek deliverance from all that would humble them. They have not reached the level of seeing humility as a manifestation of the beauty of the Lamb of God.
Can we hope to reach the state in which this will be the case? Certainly. The same way that Paul reached it: a new revelation of the Lord Jesus. Nothing but the presence of God can reveal and expel self. A clearer insight was to be given to Paul into the deep truth and the presence of Jesus banished every desire to seek anything in ourselves. It will make us delight in every humiliation that prepares us to His fuller manifestation.
We may know advanced believers, eminent teachers, and men of great spiritual experience who have not yet learned to embrace humility. We see this danger in Paul’s situation. The inevitability of exalting himself was close at hand. He didn’t yet know what it was to be nothing, to die, that Christ alone might live in him; to take pleasure in all that brought him low.
Every Christian who seeks to advance in holiness should remember this; there may be intense consecration and fervent zeal, and if the Lord himself does not step in, there may be unconscious self-exaltation. Let us learn the lesson that the greatest holiness comes in the deepest humility.
Let us look at our lives in the light of the experience and see whether we gladly glory in weakness and whether we take pleasure, as Paul did, in injuries, in necessities, in distresses. Yes, let us ask whether we have learned to regard a reproof, just or unjust, a reproach from a friend or an enemy, an injury, or trouble, or difficulty as an opportunity for providing that Jesus is all to us. It is indeed the deepest happiness of heaven to be so free from self that whatever is said of us or done to us is swallowed up in the thought that Jesus is all and we are nothing.
He watches over us with a jealous, loving care, lest we exalt ourselves. When we do this. He seeks to show to us the evil of it and to deliver us from it. His presence fills and satisfies our emptiness; and becomes the secret of humility.
The danger of pride is greater and nearer than we think, and especially at the time of our greatest experiences.
Paul was in danger without knowing it; what Jesus did for him is written for our admonition, that we may know our danger and know our only safety. If ever it has been said of a teacher or professor of holiness; he is so full of self; or he does not practice what he preaches; or his blessing has not made him humbler or gentler—let it be said no more. Jesus, in whom we trust, can make us humble.
The grace for humility is also greater and nearer than we think. The humility of Jesus is our salvation: Jesus himself is our humility. His grace is sufficient for us to meet the temptation of pride. His strength will be perfected in our weakness. Let us choose to be weak, to be low, to be nothing. Let humility be to us joy and gladness. Let us gladly glory and take pleasure in weakness, in all that will humble us and keep us low; the power of Christ will rest upon us. We will find that the deepest humility is the secret of the truest happiness, of a joy that nothing can destroy.
Chapter 12
How can I overcome my pride? Two things are needed. Do what God says to do, humble yourself. Trust Him to do what He says He will do. He will exalt you.
The command is clear. But to humble yourself does not mean that you must conquer and cast out the pride of your nature and then form within yourself the lowliness of Jesus. NO! This is God’s work. He lifts you up into the true likeness of His beloved Son. What the command does mean is this; take every opportunity to humble yourself before God and man. In the faith of the grace that is already working in you; in the assurance of the grace for the victory that is yet to be; stand persistently under the unchanging command; humble yourself. Accept with gratitude everything that God allows from within or without, from friend or enemy, in nature or in grace, to remind you of your need for humbling and to help you in it. Reckon humility to be the mother virtue, your very first duty before God, the one perpetual safeguard of the soul, and set your heart upon it as the source of all blessing. He will give you more grace. He will exalt you in due time.
All God’s dealings with man are characterized by two states.
Time of preparation – when command and promise, with the mingled experience of effort and impotence, of failure and partial success, with the holy expectancy of something better, that these waken, train, and discipline men for a higher stage.
Time of fulfillment – when faith inherits the promise and enjoys what it had so often struggled for in vain.
This law holds good in every part of the Christian life and in the pursuit of every separate virtue. And that is because it is grounded in the very nature of things. In all that concerns our redemption, God must take the initiative. When that has been done, it is man’s turn. In the effort after obedience and attainment, he must learn to know his powerlessness, in self-despair to die to himself and so be fitted voluntarily and intelligently to receive from God the end, the completion of that which he had accepted in the beginning in ignorance. So God who had been the Beginning before man rightly knew Him or fully understood what His purpose was, is longed for and welcomed as the End, as the All in All.
It is so, too, in the pursuit of humility. To every Christian the command comes from the throne of God himself: humble yourself.
The earnest attempt to listen and obey will be rewarded with the painful discovery of two things:
The depth of our pride
and the powerlessness of all our efforts to destroy it.
We know the law of human nature: acts produce habits, habits breed disposition, disposition form the will, and the rightly formed will become the character. It is no different in the work of grace. As acts, persistently repeated, beget habits and dispositions and these strengthened the will. He who works both to will and to do in us comes with His mighty power and Spirit; and the humbling of the proud heart with which the penitent saint so often casts himself before God is rewarded with “more grace” of the humble heart.
The highest glory of the creature is in being a vessel, to receive and enjoy and show forth the glory of God. It can do this only as it is willing to be nothing in itself, that God may be everything. The lower, the emptier a man lies before God, the speedier and the fuller will be the inflow of the divine glory. The exaltation God promises is not, cannot be, any external thing apart from himself; all that He has to give or can give is only more of himself, in order that He might take the more complete possession. The exaltation is not, like an earthly prize, something arbitrary, in no connection with the conduct to be rewarded. It is in the very nature the effect and result of the humbling of ourselves. It is nothing but the gift of such a divine indwelling humility, such conformity to and possession of the humility of the Lamb of God, as fits us for receiving full the indwelling of God.
Let us take His yoke upon us and learn of Him, for He is meek and lowly of heart. If we are but willing to stoop to Him, as He has stooped to us. He will yet stoop to each one of us again, and we shall find ourselves not unequally yoked with him. As we enter deeper into the fellowship of His humiliation—and either humble ourselves or bear the humbling of me—we can count upon the fact that the Spirit of His exaltation, “the Spirit of God and of glory,” will rest upon us. The presence and the power of the glorified Christ will come to them that are of a humble spirit. He will make your glory His motivation to perfect your humility.
It was by self and its strength that the work was done under the name of faith; it was for self and its happiness that God was called in, it was, unconsciously, but still truly, in self and its holiness that the soul rejoiced. We never knew that humility--absolute, abiding, Christ-like humility-and self-effacement, pervading and marking our whole life with God and man, was the most essential element of the life of holiness for which we sought.
It is only in the possession of God that I lose myself. He speaks to us, “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit.” (Isaiah 57:15)
Prayer:
With all the strength of our heart stand as continually as you can in the following form of prayer to God. Offer it frequently on your knees, but whether sitting, walking, or standing, be always inwardly longing and earnestly praying this one prayer to God:
That of his goodness He would make known to you, and take from your heart every kind and form and degree of pride, whether it by from evil spirits or your own corrupt nature, and that He would awaken in you the deepest depth and truth of that humility which can make you capable of His light and Holy Spirit. Reject every thought but that of waiting and praying in this manner from the bottom of your heart—with such truth and earnestness as people in agony pray and be delivered from their torment. In this spirit of prayer, I will venture to affirm that if you had twice as many evil spirits in you as Mary Magdalene had, they would all be cast out of you, and you would be forced with her to weep tears of love at the feet of the holy Jesus.
NOTES:
…the great truth through the depths of eternity that evil can have no beginning but from PRIDE and no end but from HUMILITY.
The truth is this: PRIDE must die in you or nothing of heaven can live in you. Humility must sow the seed or there can be no reaping in heaven. Look not at pride only as an unbecoming temper, nor all humility only as a decent virtue: for the one is Death and the other is Life, the one is hell and the other is heaven. So much as you have of pride with you, you have of the fallen angel alive in you; so much as; you have of true humility, so much you have the Lamb of God within you.
If you can see what every stirring of pride does to your soul, you would beg of everyone you meet to tear the viper from you.
If you could see what a sweet, divine, transforming power there is in humility, how it expels the poison of your nature, and makes room for the Spirit of God to live in you, you would rather wish to be the footstool of all the world than want the smallest degree of it.
We need to know two things: (1) Our salvation consists wholly in being saved from ourselves, or that which we are by nature; (2) In the whole nature of things, nothing could be salvation or savior to us but the humility of God beyond all expression.
Hence the first unalterable term of “Savior” of fallen man: ‘Except a man deny himself he cannot be my disciple.’ Self is the whole evil of the fallen nature. Self-denial is our capacity for being saved. Humility is our savior…Self is the root, the branches, the tree, of all the evil of our fallen state. All the evil of fallen angels and of men has its birth in the pride of self. On the other hand all the virtues of the heavenly life stem from humility. It is humility alone that makes the impossible gulf between heaven and hell.
Pride and humility are the two master powers, the two kingdoms at war for the eternal possession of man.
Pride and self-have the “all” of man, until man has his all in Christ. He only fights the good fight whose desire is that the self-idolatrous nature that he has from Adam may be put to death by the supernatural humility of Christ brought to life in him.
The one true way of dying to self is the way of patience, meekness, humility, and resignation to God.
The Spirit of divine love can have no birth in any fallen creature till it wills and chooses to be dead to all self, in patient, humble resignation to the power and mercy of God.
When the Lamb of God has brought forth a real birth of His own meekness, humility, and full resignation to God in our souls, then it is the birthday of the Spirit of love in our souls, which whenever we attain it, will feast our soul with such peace and joy in God will blot out the remembrance of everything that we called peace or joy before.
“This way to God is infallible. This infallibility is grounded in the twofold character of our Savior:
(1) As He is the Lamb of God, it is a principle of meekness and humility in the soul;
(2) As He is the Light of Heaven, and blesses eternal nature and turns it into a kingdom of heaven when we are willing to get rest for our soul in meek, humble resignation to God, then it is that He, as the Light of God and heaven, joyfully breaks in upon us, turns our darkness into light, and begins that kingdom of God and of love within us that will never have an end.”
http://www.cec-sd.org/materials/HumilitybyAndrewMurray.pdf
6/17/14 - wwmrinc
OVERVIEW from Humility - By Andrew Murray
After reading Andrew Murray's book titled Humility, I made this overview to remind myself to remain humble and incorporate these truths in my daily living. I think you could benefit by doing so as well.
Restoration heals the broken-hearted and sets the Captives FREE!!!
