To Die is To Live

The more abundant the experience of grace the more intense the consciousness of being a sinner.

Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness, Andrew Murray

“Nothing sets a person so much out of the devil’s reach as humility.”

-          Jonathan Edwards

Often humility is conflated with penitence and contrition for sin, almost as if guilt and shame are necessary to make us humble.  But humility is nothing like this, and often it is taught in Scripture without even mentioning sin.  It is a positive virtue – the virtue necessary for the other virtues to thrive – not a negative virtue:

…humility is the very essence of holiness.  It is the displacement of self by the enthronement of God.  Where God is all, self is nothing.

This does not mean we forget or ignore our sin, nor forget our sinful nature; the apostle Paul never did, always reminding that he was the worst of sinners.  As noted in the opening quote, the more we experience God’s grace, the more we are aware of our condition of sin and even of our sins.  Which leads us all the more to live in the glory of God.

…it is not in daily sinning that the secret of humility is found, but rather in the position of dependence upon the grace of God.

It isn’t in the sinning that we know we are sinners; it is through God’s grace that we realize our sin.  And it isn’t by following the law that we can increase our humility (this can too easily lead to pride); it is through our understanding the depth of the meaning that it is God’s grace that delivers us from the consequences of sin that will do this.

The law may break the heart with fear; it is only grace that works the sweet humility that becomes joy to the soul as its second nature. … Not to be occupied with your sin but to be fully occupied with God brings deliverance from self.

It may be obvious, but all that hinders us from receiving these blessings is our pride.  Pride is an absence of humility; pride makes faith impossible. 

As we see how in their very nature pride and faith ate 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.

This is a statement that should cut to the core; it has me, or, I should say, when this came to me in the past, I was cut to the core.  Yes, we can believe all of the right things, hold real intellectual convictions about who God is, what He has done for us, etc.  But this counts for nothing without the faith that comes only with humility – which means pride has been removed.

Faith is our confession of helplessness, a surrender to God and a trust that He will do His work.  Faith seeks God’s glory, knowing that He is all.  We cannot enter the kingdom without allowing God to be who He is:

Humility is simply the disposition that prepares the soul for living in trust. … Salvation is union with and delight in, even participation in the humility of Jesus.

Yet, do we long for humility, do we pray for it?  As mentioned earlier in this book, isn’t it a wonder that humility is not much more of a focus of what we are taught – as the most necessary part of salvation? 

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.

If there is one characteristic of Christ that is seen more than any other, is it not His faith allied with His humility?  But if we live like Christ, we will die like Christ.  Maybe not on a cross; maybe not in persecution.  But we will die to self.  A new nature of humility will lead us here.  But how?

What a hopeless task if we had to do the work ourselves!  Nature can never overcome nature, not even with the help of grace.  Self can never cast out self, even in the regenerate man.

A checklist of tasks, of characteristics one hopes to develop, of virtues which one wishes to grow.  None of this is possible without humility, and humility is not possible outside of God’s doing:

Death to self is not your work; it is God’s work. … Place yourself before God in your helplessness; 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 or troubles you as a means of grace to humble you.

I recall hearing once, something like…when one prays to God for a grace, for a virtue to grow, He will soon enough give the opportunity in which one can grow.  In this case, do we wallow in it or do we see it as an opportunity for growth?  Do we make exceptions – “no, this time I really was wronged, or not treated fairly” – or do we act with humility each time. 

What did Jesus do?  He was humble unto death, and at the same time no one ever was more unjustly accused than He was.  He suffered all of it.  And as we do the same, everything will change.  As we grow in humility, we learn the blessings of this and desire it more – until it is the all-pervading spirit of our life. 

…whenever we attain [humility], it will feast our soul with such peace and joy in God as will blot out the remembrance of everything that we called peace or joy before.

Conclusion

The whole self-awareness of the Christian is to be imbued by the spirit of the sacrifice of Christ.

We die with Christ in order to live with Christ.  When we acknowledge daily our helplessness, our dependence on God, He will lift us up.

Let a willing, loving, restful humility be the mark that you have claimed your birthright… The souls that enter into His humiliation will find in Him the power to see and count self as dead….