Humility

      “Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matt 11:29).

      Pride is the greatest of all evils that beset us, and of all our enemies it is that which dies the slowest and hardest. God hates pride above all things because it gives to man the place that belongs to Him who is above, exalted over all. Pride intercepts communion with God and draws down His chastisement, for “God resists the proud” (1 Pet. 5:5).

      He who is lowest and lowliest will be most blessed. Often the soul, by seeking joy, cannot get it. This would not purify and bless it, and to bless, God must purify. When emptied of self and when seeking God we find joy.

      Shall I ever forget the humiliation of Christ? Never! never! through all eternity. I shall never forget His humiliation on earth. While seeing Him in glory animates the soul to run after Him, what feeds the soul is the bread come down. That produces a spirit that thinks of everything but itself. Go and study Him, and live by Him, and you will come out in His likeness, in all His grace and gentleness and loveliness. The Lord give us to be so occupied with Him who was so full of love, so full of lowliness, that we shall manifest the same.

      True humility does not so much consist in thinking badly of ourselves as in not thinking of ourselves at all. I am too bad to be worth thinking about. What I want is to forget myself and to look to God, who is worth all my thoughts. The only real humbleness and strength and blessing is to forget self in the presence and blessedness of God. May you be in yourself so broken down that you may find One who never breaks down.

      “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5). What was the mind that was in Jesus? It was always coming down. The more He humbled Himself, the more He was trampled on. He goes down till He can go no lower, down to the dust of death. Are you content to do this? Are you content to have the mind that was in Christ Jesus, content to be always trampled on?

Dependence

      “Without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

      When we are really weak God never leaves us; but when unconscious of our infirmities we have to learn them by experience. The whole thing for us is to achieve absolute dependence on infallible faithfulness and unwearied love to carry us through. Conscious weakness causes a saint not to dare to move without God. The very essence of the condition of a soul in a right state is conscious dependence. Let us delight in dependence—that a Person above us should minister to us and care for us.

      There is an easy way of going on in worldliness, and there is nothing more sad than the quiet comfortable Christian going on day by day apart from dependence on the Lord. We must always be in dependence or fall. In every detail of our lives there is no blessing but in dependence on God. The point for us is to rest in the arm of the Lord, whatever may be, and not run to get help elsewhere.

      We may be saying true things in prayer or in testimony, but if we are not realizing our dependence on the Lord we shall not have His strength in the battle. When victory does not tend to worship, we and God part company as soon as the victory is achieved. How sad to see victory often leading to mere joy instead of still greater dependence on and delight in God.

      One cannot do an instant without Him; how blessed it is to trust Him!

            (From Milk and Honey, Vol. 20.)