Humility

In our ordinary religious teaching, the aspect of the sinner has been emphasized too strongly, to the point that some have even gone to the extreme thinking that we must keep sinning if we are to stay humble.

We have our life from and in Christ, more truly than from and in Adam.

This life of entire self-denial, of absolute submission and dependence upon the Father's will, Christ found to be one of perfect peace and joy. He lost nothing by giving all to God.

We must learn from Jesus, how He is meek and lowly of heart. He teaches us where true humility takes its proper place and finds its strength. This happens when we take hold of the knowledge that it is God who works all in all, that our responsibility is to yield to Him in perfect surrender and dependence, in full compliance to be and to do nothing of ourselves. Christ came to reveal and pass on a life to God that came through death to sin and self.

To how many of us has it not been a realized joy in our Christian life to know that we have the ability to yield ourselves as servants, as slaves to God? That we can find that His service is our highest liberty, the freedom from sin and self?

Brethren, here is the path to the higher life. Down, lower down!

Humility should be the primary focus of our efforts. However, it must be fully understood that humility only comes in power when the fullness of the Spirit makes us partakers of the indwelling Christ.

All external teaching and personal effort is ineffective to conquer pride or produce the meek and lowly heart.

None of these external efforts produces humility. It is only produced when the new nature in its divine humility takes the place of the old, to become our very nature.

It is only when we, like the Son, truly know and show that we can do nothing of ourselves, that God will do all.

Our love for God will be found to be an illusion, except where it is proven by the test of daily life with our fellow man. It is the same with our humility.

The only humility that is really ours is not the humility we try to show before God in prayer, but that which we carry with us and actively live in our ordinary conduct.

Humility before God is nothing unless it is proven through humility before men.

The humble man feels no jealousy or envy. He can praise God when others are favored and rewarded before him. He can bear to hear others praised and himself forgotten, because in God's presence he has learned to say with Paul, "I am nothing."

Let us look at every person who annoys or agitates us as God's means of grace, God's instrument for our purification, for the working out of the humility Jesus our Life breathes within us.

The distinguishing feature of counterfeit holiness is its lack of humility.

Humility is, simply stated, the disappearance of self in the vision and understanding that God is all.

Salvation had no meaning or sweetness except when it was looked at through the lens of being a Sinner. This made it precious and real to [Paul].

The point I wish to emphasize is that our only place of joy and our constant position before God must be to confess that we are sinners saved by grace. Daily sinning is not where the secret of deeper humility will be found, but in our constant position of abundant grace.

Being occupied with self, even to the point of hating yourself, can never free us from self. It is only by the revelation of God.

It is possible to have strong intellectual conviction and assurance of the truth while pride is kept in the heart, but it makes living faith, which has power with God an impossibility.

Let us accept gladly whatever can humble us before God or men. This alone is the path to the glory of God.

Friend, the only thing that can cure you of the desire for man's praise or the hurt feelings and anger which come when it is not given, is by only seeking the glory that comes from God. Let the glory of the all-glorious God be everything to you. You will be freed from the glory of men and of self, and be content and glad to be nothing.

Only humility leads to perfect death, and only death perfects humility. Humility and death are in their very nature, one. Humility is the bud, and in death, the fruit is ripened to perfection.

How can I die to self? The death to self is not your work, it is God's work. In Christ you are dead to sin.

Death to self has no surer death-mark than a humility which makes itself of no reputation, which empties out itself and takes the form of a servant.

Let us learn the lesson: the highest holiness is the deepest humility.

Our humility is His care and His work.

The command is clear: Humble yourself.

In all that concerns our redemption, God must take the initiative. When that has been done, man's turn comes.

The highest glory of the creature is in being only a vessel, to receive and enjoy and show forth the glory of God.