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HUMILITY
The Perspective of Humility. We have written a great deal about humility in the past, but we always manage to see some new truths when we revisit this topic. Everything we do as believers begins with humility. We will not confess, pray, learn, or endure, without humility. But it is not our nature to be humble, as we saw in the last section; it is common for us to become proud. The pride we have is inherited from Adam, and is a permanent tendency within our make-up. It is only when we are in communion with the Holy Spirit through the cleansing effects of confession that the life of Christ within us becomes dominant. From Him we learn humility. It is not our natural view-point, but is a “supernatural” outlook that comes through growth and fellowship.
In this chapter, we will lean heavily on Andrew Murray for clear language to frame the concept of humility, as presented in his book, Humility: the Beauty of Holiness. Here is a statement from this book, which highlights the need for us to examine this topic: “How much there may be of earnest and active religion while humility is still sadly wanting.” (Endnote ... [p. 23, Humility]) We have plenty of “worship” and “speech” and “sincere countenances”, but too little humility. The practice of “religion”, often based on some form of self-induced legalism, is based on the belief that we are basically, intrinsically, and independently “good”.
After we are saved, there is a tendency for us to embrace religious conformity and compliance as the way to exhibit “Christianity”. We see our place among men, and forget our place before God. We too often gauge our value by how we compare with others, and assume that as long as we measure up to some minimum standard, we pass. The right “practice” is there, but not the right “attitude”.
Murray gives a perfect perspective of the right attitude of humility in the following statement:
Yes, let us ask whether we have learnt to regard a reproof, just or unjust, a reproach from friend or enemy, an injury, or trouble, or difficulty into which others bring us, as above all an opportunity of proving how Jesus is all to us, how our own pleasure or honour are nothing, and how humiliation is in very truth what we take pleasure in. It is indeed blessed, the deep happiness of heaven, to be so free from self that whatever is said of us or done to us is lost and swallowed up in the thought that Jesus is all. (Endnote ... [pp. 50-51, Humility])
How can it be any clearer how accepting we must be of God’s attempts to train us through humbling circumstances? This is the hardest condition for us to endure gracefully. Here is what we mean by this: When others behave wrongly, we can pretty much tolerate that, unless that “wrong behavior” is directed at us. If we are wrongly accused, or harshly put down, our self-defensive mechanisms kick in, making it impossible for us not to rise up in defense of the truth about us. If we are wrongly criticized, we are driven to correct any mistakes. But that is not all: Even when we are rightly “judged”, we still feel a need to justify ourselves. This is because we have screened out God’s purpose in the training exercises that he brings to teach us humility, and we resort to our own resources to sustain and preserve our image. It is virtually impossible for us not to protect our reputation, when it is threatened, but the right response to being maligned is to trust God to sustain us through the attack. The kind of maturity required to exhibit such humility is rare, almost to the point of extinction. But it is, with God, possible. Let us pray that we can achieve such an extraordinary level of faith.
Speaking of faith, the attitude of humility is fundamental to the full operation of our faith. Or perhaps it is better seen as the greatest evidence of our faith. Humility and faith are almost identical, because the more we see God in His true reality, and the more humble we become, the more there will be a concomitant presence of faith. And the more we see pride and self-trust and self-absorption in ourselves, the more we will see our faith eroded. Humility is the kernel of all we will ever hope to understand, become, or achieve. Without humility, there will be no meaning or fulfillment of our purpose as believers.
Realizing that We can do Nothing. Once again, we look to Murray to help us shape our understanding of humility and its place. This is what he presented concerning the centrality of humility:
Humility is the only soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure. Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of all because it alone takes the right attitude before God, and allows Him as God to do all. (Endnote ... [p. 8, Humility])
How can God operate through a heart that forms a road-block to Him? How can He bless us and empower us when we are relying on another (ourselves) to execute the Christian way of life. He can only work through a heart that is open to Him. Murray continues this vein of thought by saying, “...the first and chief mark of the relation of the creature, the secret of his blessedness, is the humility and nothingness which leaves God free to be all?” This was true of the humanity of Christ, of His disciples, and now of us. Without God, we can do nothing; and we are nothing. Murray said, “It is only where we, like the Son, truly know and show that we can do nothing of ourselves, that God will do all.”
Any goodness or righteousness or holiness does not come from man as the source, but from God. It is the quintessence of pride to believe that we are good, or that we produce goodness, regardless of how the world may view or assess what we do. To claim that we produce “good” is to ignore its only real origin, which is God Himself. Murray concluded this:
There is none holy but God: we have as much of holiness as we have of 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. (Endnote ... [p. 34, Holiness])
Learning what Humility Is. Does being humble mean that we should go around berating ourselves? No. Public self-effacement or open self-condemnation is not what humility calls for. Humility is on the inside, and does not need to be announced, although it will surely show if it is present, without our saying a word. In that connection, public confession of sins is NOT required in Scripture. (James 5:16 refers to clearage of outstanding relational difficulties with fellow believers, not exchanging sin lists with each other. If you have wronged someone, clear that before you pray, since unresolved relationship issues affect prayers.) The correct recipient for confession is God alone. Public confession can easily turn into a process by which one carnal believer can influence other believers to join him in carnality. When a sin is described by a believer, it can easily appeal to the sinful natures of others, and—before you know it—carnality is spreading like a summer cold.
We would all like to be lifted up by God. We all want grace and God’s favor. But these do not come through directly searching or vying for them; they come through humility. Grace is for the humble. If we want grace, we must learn humility. James 4:10 says, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” James 5:6b-7 confirms this, saying, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”
An important point to note is that we don’t “make” ourselves humble. We cannot BE humble; we must LEARN HUMILITY through God’s Word and God’s training. Through growth and training, we BECOME humble. We don’t decide to be “humble”; we decide to grow and endure training, so humility will develop. It is then that God can lift us up. Once again, Murray has a better description:
He has not learnt to seek humility at any cost. He has accepted the command to be humble, and seeks to obey it, though only to find how utterly he fails. He prays for humility, at times very earnestly; but in his secret heart he prays more, if not in word, then in wish, to be kept from the very things that will make him humble. (Endnote ... [p. 49, Holiness])
Humility is learned through training, so when we pray to grow or be made humble, we must know what this means: that we will be shaped and refined through the hammering and grinding of God’s training program.
Jesus said, “...learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (from Matt. 11:29). Rest comes through proper recognition of God as God, and the wisdom to see ourselves as the weak and lowly creatures we are. We are wholly dependent on the grace and mercy of our Creator and Savior. Jesus also said, “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:4). And He said, “For he who is least among you all—he is the greatest” (Luke 9:48b). We are starting to see what we have to learn: that we are most when we are least, that we are strongest when we know our weakness, that we are most successful when we acknowledge our failures, and that we are most forgivable when we confess our sins.
The conditions under which we are learning humility are the most challenging we will face. The real test of humility takes place in the “heat of battle”, in the rigors and difficulties of daily life. It is easier to think about God and maintain humility in the form of confession, prayer, Bible study, and so on...when we are comfortable and at ease. But when we are engaged in meeting the demands of our many responsibilities in the world, and facing a steady flow of events, it is much harder. Being able to maintain humility when the storm is raging requires great advancement into maturity. Believers who are new or mid-level in their growth will be swamped by circumstances in the world, and have little hope of staying humble. Their thinking will tend to be carnal and/or worldly. So a strong case can be made for maximum attention to growth. (Have we said this before?)
While learning about God as part of our growth process, we come to understand his LOVE, which is the most humbling awareness we can have. In Ephesians 3, we see the importance of God’s love, and learn that our fully grasping this love is the basis for our receiving the fullness of God. This is what we see in verses 17b-19:
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
We don’t see “humility” mentioned specifically in this passage, but we see it before and after, in Ephesians 3:8 and 4:1-2. Paul says that he is “less than the least of all God’s people” (3:8), so he received grace; and he calls for us to “be completely humble and gentle” (4:2), so that our lives will be “worthy of our calling” (4:1). When we receive the fullness of God, as Paul assuredly did, we can become “less”, with the hope that when we become small enough, we can reflect some semblance of the greatness of Paul. When we know how big God is, how great grace is, and how wonderful God’s love is, we will be eligible for the humility that lets us share in all of these.
When we see God, we will not like the person we see in ourselves apart from God. In Job 42:5-6, Job finally realized that the problems he was having rested with HIM and not with God. In this passage, he said, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” What does God want most from us? Humility. What reflects humility and recognition of mercy and grace better than anything else? Confession...or “repentance”. When Job looked at his own failings, and SAW with the eyes of his heart the greatness of God, he could only despise himself.
Isaiah felt the same way, as we see in Is. 6:5, where he said, “‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am a man of unclean lips...’” He followed this with, “‘...my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.’” This confession and awakening set Isaiah up to go to work, both within himself, and within God’s plan. In verse 8 (still in Is. 6), he said, “Here am I. Send me.” And God replied in verse 9, saying, “Go and tell this people...”, followed by the message he was to deliver. The cleansing that came from confession (as per verse 7, which says, “...your guilt is taken away”) equipped Isaiah for service. His humility qualified him to fulfill his mission. Applying this to ourselves, when we start “seeing” God through growth, we can know that we are moving toward humility.
Humility (along with the fullness of God, surrender, victory over sin, and full-on service) may be one of the last spiritual conditions we achieve. Seeing God, which goes along with grasping His love, leads to His fullness and humility. It is then that we can be exalted and lifted up, becoming recipients of “more grace” (James 4:6). When this happens, we will know our true place in the divine hierarchy, and we will see at last, perhaps with a jolting shock, that God is everything!
Paul’s Humility. We mentioned Paul’s humility in the last section, but there is more to discover from his example, so we will extend earlier remarks to include further examination of his mature view of himself and God. 1 Cor. 15:9-10 is Paul’s testimony:
For I am least of the apostles and do not deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.
There are several items in this and related reports regarding Paul’s humility that we want to examine, as follows:
1. When Paul became born again, he was as far from God as one can get. He was openly opposing the message of Christ, and those who espoused it.
2. After he was saved, did Paul achieve humility right away, or begin his ministry immediately? No. He was not ready. He started off as a helpless blind person, before being healed and then being sent to the desert for three years of intensive preparation.
3. When Paul started writing his epistles, over a decade had passed since he had been saved, and a lot of training had been completed in the meantime. He was learning humility to equip him for the operation of his gifts.
4. Before he began his first missionary journey...and before he wrote his first epistle...he had come to recognize that it was not he that was doing God’s work...it was God. Specifically, it was God’s “grace”—operating through Paul’s gifts in the energy of the Spirit—that ended up doing the job.
5. So Paul could just sit back and watch God work, right? In a sense, yes...on the INSIDE. But results are manifested on the OUTSIDE? Paul “worked harder than them all”, even though it was God’s grace that was behind him. Paul knew he was the vessel, the instrument, the “least of all God’s people”, dependent on grace. (See Eph. 3:7-8.) And he was worked to the bone.
6. By recognizing his place in the kingdom, which was that of a “servant” of God (Eph. 3:7), Paul achieved humility, which opened wide avenues for service, resulting in the unfettered expression of grace through Him. God took this one, this “least” of all believers, and gave him the privilege of being the greatest single proponent of grace, and the best-known expositor of truths for living, in all of human history.
While Paul was doing all the phenomenal things that he accomplished, did he still have a sinful nature? Of course! That is why, in 1 Tim. 1:15, He said, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.” Does he mean that he was the “worst” before he was saved, and that after salvation he was forever pure? No.
After Paul was saved, he recognized that there was much work to be done, before he would be elevated above his position as the “worst”. Paul had been a distinguished scholar and public official in his society before he was saved, but salvation changed that altogether. No longer was he a powerful and influential man. He was ostracized and alone in a world quite foreign to the world he had known. The world had not changed, of course; Paul had changed.
As he grew, he learned that what he did, he did by grace, and not through existential superiority. In Paul’s recognition of being the worst, he was citing his past, even his growth history, during which time he spent a great deal of time living up to his label as the worst. Like all of us, he no doubt went through many failures before he learned how to operate in grace.
To succeed, Paul learned what we must all learn, as expressed by Andrew Murray:
He seeks to bring us low, until we so learn that His grace is all, as to take pleasure in the very thing that brings us and keeps us low. His strength made perfect in our weakness. His presence filling and satisfying our emptiness, becomes the secret of a humility that need never fail. (Endnote ... [p. 51, Humility])
There is a wrinkle, though, that we need to see in Paul’s growth pattern, which is going to seem a little odd when we present it, yet it is perfectly in line with all the things we have said before in God’s Training Program for Believers, Step by Step toward Surrender, Killing Sin before Sin Kills You, and Entering the Promised Land: Contentment at Last. The process of spiritual growth is seen in these books, consisting of steady advancement in one’s faith, and commitment to God’s plan and will. Sufficient progress can eventually lead to super-maturity, which is what Paul ultimately attained. We will get to Paul’s “surprising pattern” shortly. First, a little more on his maturity...and ours.
The thing we discovered in the earlier studies just listed is that a few Christians along the way are able to achieve an extraordinary level of maturity that enables them to surrender completely to God’s will, where they will experience victory over sin and receive unprecedented blessings of all kinds. The spiritual strength acquired through this process enables a mature believer to serve without the weights and impediments that hamper pre-maturity living. Through super-maturity, a believer learns to walk entirely by the power of the Holy Spirit, and to live in yieldedness to His direction.
It is apparent that Paul achieved this. He came from the “least” to a time of “holiness”. And here’s the surprise: If Paul was mature and “holy”...and knew it...how can this measure up to the notion of humility? Here is how: Humility is ultimately a full recognition of GRACE. There is no question that Paul became a powerful, surrendered believer through grace, which brought him to HUMILITY. His humble attitude was completely directed toward God, and became, as we shall see later, overlaid with FAITH. The blend of mature humility and faith erupted into FULL CONFIDENCE in God’s workings, with this outcome: Paul KNEW that he had arrived, at last, at his spiritual destination, where he trusted God completely, while God worked unreservedly. This is what we see in 2 Cor. 1:12, as follows:
Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted (behaved) ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom but according to God’s grace.
The resolution to our surprise about Paul is that he knew he was living in the power and wisdom of grace (or “by the Spirit”), and he knew he had achieved “holiness”...but he also knew that what was his did not come from him. What was being generated was not his own righteousness or perfection...but that which comes FROM GOD. On the surface, his confidence may have looked like pride, which would come as a shock from such a great believer. But Paul’s knowing that he was “holy” was actually an expression of humility, because he acknowledged the source of the good that was flowing through him. Paul was mature enough to be “holy”, to know it, and to remain humble.
Don’t try this at home, because you and I are not prepared for this. We have not reached super-maturity; we are just far enough along to see the concept, though we are not yet able to live it. We still live in a universe in which we are the center, and where anything good must be generated by us. We still fail miserably. We may count on God now and then, but NOT FULLY, as Paul did! The door is open to us, though; we can grow into a closer walk with God, so that we will gradually gain understanding of the place of God in our lives and in all of creation, and this will eventually lead us to full maturity. Paul himself learned through a means which Murray described well, as follows:
It [humility] can, as [with] Paul, in full sight of what God works in us and through us, ever say, “In nothing was I behind the chiefest apostles [2 Cor. 11:5], though I am nothing” [Eph. 3:8a]. His humiliations had led him to true humility, with its wonderful gladness and glorying and pleasure in all that humbles. (Endnote ... [p. 51, Humility])
Paul came from the “least” to the “chiefest”, but was still nothing, as grace was everything. And through such advanced awareness, Paul achieved “holiness”.
The big lesson for us is that God will teach us humility, and bring us to recognize, if we are willing, that only God can be God. While we are growing, as long as we are promoting ourselves instead of Him, we will be blocking His place in us. Humility invites Him; pride slams the door on Him. Conclusion: Humility opens the door to His life in us. When we master this, we will be able to say, with Paul, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). That is our objective.
Paul and Confession. Murray gives an eye-opening description of Paul’s humility, as seen in its most concrete form, which is the “confession of sins”. Forgive a lengthy quote from Murray’s Humility, none of which can be properly omitted for us to fully understand Paul’s confession of sins, as follows:
The true aspect of what these expressions of St. Paul teach us comes out all the more strongly when we notice the remarkable fact that, through his whole Christian course, we never find from his pen, even in those epistles in which we have the most intensely personal unbosoming, anything like confession of sin. Nowhere is there any mention of shortcoming or defect, nowhere any suggestion to his readers that he has failed in duty, or sinned against the law of perfect love. On the contrary, there are passages not a few in which he vindicates himself in language that means nothing if it does not appeal to a faultless life before God and men. ‘Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily, and righteously, and unblameably we behaved ourselves toward you’ (1 Thess. 2:10). ‘Our glorying is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity of God we behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly to you ward’ (2 Cor. 1:12). This is not an ideal or an aspiration; it is an appeal to what his actual life had been. However we may account for this absence of confession, all will admit that it must point to a life in the power of the Holy Ghost, such as is but seldom realized or expected in these our days.
Paul had surrendered to God, had achieved victory over sin, and had received God’s rest (or “contentment”), because he had reached super-maturity and received the “fullness of God”. He had learned concentrated humility, and knew that everything he did, every “service” he rendered, was an accomplishment of God’s Spirit within him, and God’s grace around him. Because he had developed such a complete faith in God’s love and power, he was able to live virtually “sin-free”. Hence the absence of confession.
This is possible for us, as it was for Paul. We can reach the level of faith and communion with God that we, too, can exhibit a level of cleanliness and devotion that will make confession a rare necessity. Not now, mind you, but this is potential within the future life of any true seeker of God, any believer dedicated to growth.
Paul on Humility before Men. We have largely been examining humility before God, and now want to see what Paul said about humility before men. To compact this discussion, which deserves more attention than we have space for here, we will cite several scriptures that establish the place of humility in the way believers treat, and respond to, each other.
Remember that the concentration of our love and service will lie in the area of our gifts. Outside our gifted areas, we are to have gentle compassion toward all believers, but the broader application of this requirement to “love” will represent a kind of “sweeping in the corners”, which is the product of great maturity. We see in the following passages a call for us to allow the love of God to flow through us toward others:
· Eph. 5:21—“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” The source for love and regard for each other comes out of our relationship with and attitude toward Jesus Christ. When we are in fellowship and moving toward Him, we will be learning to “submit” to each other, rather than always trying to keep the “upper hand”.
· Col. 3:12-14—“Therefore, as God chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” With humility arising out of maturity, we will be able to be filled and covered with godly love. This will include patience and gentleness toward those who are coming along behind us.
· Eph. 4:2—“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” Once again, as we mature, we will exhibit humility and patience toward fellow believers. Believers are more “trying”, or harder to work with, because they have pressures from training, as well as increased Satanic attacks, which can make them much more stubborn and irascible than unbelievers. Dealing with believers requires MATURITY!
· Matt. 23:11-12—“The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Self-promotion by believers is challenging to those around them, and is detrimental to personal fellowship with God, as well as peaceful relations with each other. Real service cannot mix with self-advancement. Service for praise is NOT service.
· Rom. 12:10—“Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.” When we see others as “above” us, we will take on the attitude of a servant. This is the standard; the means is maturity.
· 1 Cor. 13:4-6—“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” Love, the primary manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and the symbol of fellowship with Him, is expressed through our gifts. It is clear, then, that gifts will not operate, if love is absent. If you want to know if you are operating in a correct way spiritually, look at the indicators for love just given. If they are not seen in your attitude and demeanor, you have some work to do. Come along; I will join you.
· Gal. 5:13—“You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.” The sinful nature drags us in a hundred different directions, all of them away from God. But when the Holy Spirit, rather than our nature, is in control, we can serve each other as a statement of our love and fellowship.
· Philippians 2:3—“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Once again, we see the ugly “SELF” rearing its ugly head, keeping us from humility and service.
How could Paul be more emphatic on our responsibility to stay in fellowship, grow, and reach a level of maturity that will enable us to be humble and to love and serve others? If we have any concrete seriousness about God in our lives, we must acknowledge our need to grow and to serve, followed by definite steps to make these happen. Growing IN grace, and BY grace, we will learn how to serve, which for us is to learn how to really live.
Faith and Humility. We cannot have faith if we do not have humility. Faith and humility travel together. As faith grows, humility grows; and as humility increases, faith thrives. Once again, we turn to Murray in the following for clarity and insight, to help us understand the relationship between humility and faith:
We need only think for a moment what faith is. Is it not the confession of nothingness and helplessness, the surrender and the waiting to let God Work? Is it no in itself the most humbling thing there can be—the acceptance of our place as dependents, who can claim or get or do nothing but what grace bestows? Humility is simply the disposition which prepares the soul for living on trust. And every, even the most secret breathing of pride, in self-seeking, self-will, self-confidence, or self-exaltation, is just the strengthening of that self which cannot enter the kingdom, or possess the things of the kingdom, because it refuses to allow God to be what He is and must be there—the All in All. (Endnote ... [pp. 41-42, Humility])
Faith is the means to recognizing God; humility is the response to what we see. We see God because we trust Him and believe what we learn about Him. And we are humbled by what we come to understand. When we look at the world, our pride is fed, either with what we have, or with what we imagine that we might get. But when we look at God, humility increases, as faith is growing. Murray concludes this thought with these words:
Faith is the organ or sense for the perception and apprehension of the heavenly world and its blessings. Faith seeks the glory that comes from God, that only comes where God is All. As long as we take glory from one another, as long as ever 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 receive the glory that comes from God. Pride renders faith impossible. (Endnote ... [p. 42, Humility])
Humility is attached to all spiritual engagements, including confession, prayer, study, trusting, and endurance. And it is the center-piece for all our relationships with fellow believers. There is no separating any part of the Christian life from humility. Murray said, “It is the humility that brings a soul to be nothing before God, that also removes every hindrance to faith, and makes it fear lest it should dishonor Him by not trusting Him wholly”. (Endnote ... [p. 42, Humility]) What does our life with God require, more than any other condition? Humility! Murray puts the cap on this by saying the following:
...absolute, unceasing, universal humility must be the root-disposition of every prayer and every approach to God as well as of every dealing with man; and that we might as well attempt to see without eyes or live without breath, as believe or draw nigh to God or dwell in His love, without an all-pervading humility and lowliness of heart.
We must not expect to ever reach super-maturity and surrender, if we leave humility behind at any point. If we expect to have great faith, we must first have great humility. Matt. 8:5-13, tells of a centurion, who—wanting Jesus to heal the servant he had left at home—reported the illness to Him. Jesus said, “I will go and heal him.” The centurion responded to the offer, saying, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.” Jesus was amazed at this, and said to the centurion, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.” And, of course, the servant was healed. The lesson: faith reflects humility. (Endnote ... [p. 42, Humility])
In Matt. 15:21-28, a Canaanite woman is reported to have come to Jesus, confronting Him with her daughter’s problem of demon possession. The disciples tried to get Jesus to send her away, but He replied to them: “I was sent only to lost sheep of Israel.” Implication: the “sheep” would not include her, because she is not of Israel. The woman cried, “Lord, help me!” His reply to her was, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs,” referring again to her not being a Jew. She replied to Him, “Yes, Lord...but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” She was saying she would take the off-fall of His ministry, which was more than she had from Him at the time. Even a small piece of His healing would be an enormous blessing to her. Jesus answered, saying,
“Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” The Canaanite woman had accepted the label of a “dog”, which showed her humility, and she accepted even the smallest favor from Jesus, knowing that it would be a big thing, if it came from Him. (Endnote ... [p. 42, Humility])
We see, then, that faith and humility are symbiotic qualities, which support each other and respectively reinforce mutual purposes.
HUMILITY
The Perspective of Humility. We have written a great deal about humility in the past, but we always manage to see some new truths when we revisit this topic. Everything we do as believers begins with humility. We will not confess, pray, learn, or endure, without humility. But it is not our nature to be humble, as we saw in the last section; it is common for us to become proud. The pride we have is inherited from Adam, and is a permanent tendency within our make-up. It is only when we are in communion with the Holy Spirit through the cleansing effects of confession that the life of Christ within us becomes dominant. From Him we learn humility. It is not our natural view-point, but is a “supernatural” outlook that comes through growth and fellowship.
In this chapter, we will lean heavily on Andrew Murray for clear language to frame the concept of humility, as presented in his book, Humility: the Beauty of Holiness. Here is a statement from this book, which highlights the need for us to examine this topic: “How much there may be of earnest and active religion while humility is still sadly wanting.” (Endnote ... [p. 23, Humility]) We have plenty of “worship” and “speech” and “sincere countenances”, but too little humility. The practice of “religion”, often based on some form of self-induced legalism, is based on the belief that we are basically, intrinsically, and independently “good”.
After we are saved, there is a tendency for us to embrace religious conformity and compliance as the way to exhibit “Christianity”. We see our place among men, and forget our place before God. We too often gauge our value by how we compare with others, and assume that as long as we measure up to some minimum standard, we pass. The right “practice” is there, but not the right “attitude”.
Murray gives a perfect perspective of the right attitude of humility in the following statement:
Yes, let us ask whether we have learnt to regard a reproof, just or unjust, a reproach from friend or enemy, an injury, or trouble, or difficulty into which others bring us, as above all an opportunity of proving how Jesus is all to us, how our own pleasure or honour are nothing, and how humiliation is in very truth what we take pleasure in. It is indeed blessed, the deep happiness of heaven, to be so free from self that whatever is said of us or done to us is lost and swallowed up in the thought that Jesus is all. (Endnote ... [pp. 50-51, Humility])
How can it be any clearer how accepting we must be of God’s attempts to train us through humbling circumstances? This is the hardest condition for us to endure gracefully. Here is what we mean by this: When others behave wrongly, we can pretty much tolerate that, unless that “wrong behavior” is directed at us. If we are wrongly accused, or harshly put down, our self-defensive mechanisms kick in, making it impossible for us not to rise up in defense of the truth about us. If we are wrongly criticized, we are driven to correct any mistakes. But that is not all: Even when we are rightly “judged”, we still feel a need to justify ourselves. This is because we have screened out God’s purpose in the training exercises that he brings to teach us humility, and we resort to our own resources to sustain and preserve our image. It is virtually impossible for us not to protect our reputation, when it is threatened, but the right response to being maligned is to trust God to sustain us through the attack. The kind of maturity required to exhibit such humility is rare, almost to the point of extinction. But it is, with God, possible. Let us pray that we can achieve such an extraordinary level of faith.
Speaking of faith, the attitude of humility is fundamental to the full operation of our faith. Or perhaps it is better seen as the greatest evidence of our faith. Humility and faith are almost identical, because the more we see God in His true reality, and the more humble we become, the more there will be a concomitant presence of faith. And the more we see pride and self-trust and self-absorption in ourselves, the more we will see our faith eroded. Humility is the kernel of all we will ever hope to understand, become, or achieve. Without humility, there will be no meaning or fulfillment of our purpose as believers.
Realizing that We can do Nothing. Once again, we look to Murray to help us shape our understanding of humility and its place. This is what he presented concerning the centrality of humility:
Humility is the only soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure. Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of all because it alone takes the right attitude before God, and allows Him as God to do all. (Endnote ... [p. 8, Humility])
How can God operate through a heart that forms a road-block to Him? How can He bless us and empower us when we are relying on another (ourselves) to execute the Christian way of life. He can only work through a heart that is open to Him. Murray continues this vein of thought by saying, “...the first and chief mark of the relation of the creature, the secret of his blessedness, is the humility and nothingness which leaves God free to be all?” This was true of the humanity of Christ, of His disciples, and now of us. Without God, we can do nothing; and we are nothing. Murray said, “It is only where we, like the Son, truly know and show that we can do nothing of ourselves, that God will do all.”
Any goodness or righteousness or holiness does not come from man as the source, but from God. It is the quintessence of pride to believe that we are good, or that we produce goodness, regardless of how the world may view or assess what we do. To claim that we produce “good” is to ignore its only real origin, which is God Himself. Murray concluded this:
There is none holy but God: we have as much of holiness as we have of 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. (Endnote ... [p. 34, Holiness])
Learning what Humility Is. Does being humble mean that we should go around berating ourselves? No. Public self-effacement or open self-condemnation is not what humility calls for. Humility is on the inside, and does not need to be announced, although it will surely show if it is present, without our saying a word. In that connection, public confession of sins is NOT required in Scripture. (James 5:16 refers to clearage of outstanding relational difficulties with fellow believers, not exchanging sin lists with each other. If you have wronged someone, clear that before you pray, since unresolved relationship issues affect prayers.) The correct recipient for confession is God alone. Public confession can easily turn into a process by which one carnal believer can influence other believers to join him in carnality. When a sin is described by a believer, it can easily appeal to the sinful natures of others, and—before you know it—carnality is spreading like a summer cold.
We would all like to be lifted up by God. We all want grace and God’s favor. But these do not come through directly searching or vying for them; they come through humility. Grace is for the humble. If we want grace, we must learn humility. James 4:10 says, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” James 5:6b-7 confirms this, saying, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”
An important point to note is that we don’t “make” ourselves humble. We cannot BE humble; we must LEARN HUMILITY through God’s Word and God’s training. Through growth and training, we BECOME humble. We don’t decide to be “humble”; we decide to grow and endure training, so humility will develop. It is then that God can lift us up. Once again, Murray has a better description:
He has not learnt to seek humility at any cost. He has accepted the command to be humble, and seeks to obey it, though only to find how utterly he fails. He prays for humility, at times very earnestly; but in his secret heart he prays more, if not in word, then in wish, to be kept from the very things that will make him humble. (Endnote ... [p. 49, Holiness])
Humility is learned through training, so when we pray to grow or be made humble, we must know what this means: that we will be shaped and refined through the hammering and grinding of God’s training program.
Jesus said, “...learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (from Matt. 11:29). Rest comes through proper recognition of God as God, and the wisdom to see ourselves as the weak and lowly creatures we are. We are wholly dependent on the grace and mercy of our Creator and Savior. Jesus also said, “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:4). And He said, “For he who is least among you all—he is the greatest” (Luke 9:48b). We are starting to see what we have to learn: that we are most when we are least, that we are strongest when we know our weakness, that we are most successful when we acknowledge our failures, and that we are most forgivable when we confess our sins.
The conditions under which we are learning humility are the most challenging we will face. The real test of humility takes place in the “heat of battle”, in the rigors and difficulties of daily life. It is easier to think about God and maintain humility in the form of confession, prayer, Bible study, and so on...when we are comfortable and at ease. But when we are engaged in meeting the demands of our many responsibilities in the world, and facing a steady flow of events, it is much harder. Being able to maintain humility when the storm is raging requires great advancement into maturity. Believers who are new or mid-level in their growth will be swamped by circumstances in the world, and have little hope of staying humble. Their thinking will tend to be carnal and/or worldly. So a strong case can be made for maximum attention to growth. (Have we said this before?)
While learning about God as part of our growth process, we come to understand his LOVE, which is the most humbling awareness we can have. In Ephesians 3, we see the importance of God’s love, and learn that our fully grasping this love is the basis for our receiving the fullness of God. This is what we see in verses 17b-19:
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
We don’t see “humility” mentioned specifically in this passage, but we see it before and after, in Ephesians 3:8 and 4:1-2. Paul says that he is “less than the least of all God’s people” (3:8), so he received grace; and he calls for us to “be completely humble and gentle” (4:2), so that our lives will be “worthy of our calling” (4:1). When we receive the fullness of God, as Paul assuredly did, we can become “less”, with the hope that when we become small enough, we can reflect some semblance of the greatness of Paul. When we know how big God is, how great grace is, and how wonderful God’s love is, we will be eligible for the humility that lets us share in all of these.
When we see God, we will not like the person we see in ourselves apart from God. In Job 42:5-6, Job finally realized that the problems he was having rested with HIM and not with God. In this passage, he said, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” What does God want most from us? Humility. What reflects humility and recognition of mercy and grace better than anything else? Confession...or “repentance”. When Job looked at his own failings, and SAW with the eyes of his heart the greatness of God, he could only despise himself.
Isaiah felt the same way, as we see in Is. 6:5, where he said, “‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am a man of unclean lips...’” He followed this with, “‘...my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.’” This confession and awakening set Isaiah up to go to work, both within himself, and within God’s plan. In verse 8 (still in Is. 6), he said, “Here am I. Send me.” And God replied in verse 9, saying, “Go and tell this people...”, followed by the message he was to deliver. The cleansing that came from confession (as per verse 7, which says, “...your guilt is taken away”) equipped Isaiah for service. His humility qualified him to fulfill his mission. Applying this to ourselves, when we start “seeing” God through growth, we can know that we are moving toward humility.
Humility (along with the fullness of God, surrender, victory over sin, and full-on service) may be one of the last spiritual conditions we achieve. Seeing God, which goes along with grasping His love, leads to His fullness and humility. It is then that we can be exalted and lifted up, becoming recipients of “more grace” (James 4:6). When this happens, we will know our true place in the divine hierarchy, and we will see at last, perhaps with a jolting shock, that God is everything!
Paul’s Humility. We mentioned Paul’s humility in the last section, but there is more to discover from his example, so we will extend earlier remarks to include further examination of his mature view of himself and God. 1 Cor. 15:9-10 is Paul’s testimony:
For I am least of the apostles and do not deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.
There are several items in this and related reports regarding Paul’s humility that we want to examine, as follows:
1. When Paul became born again, he was as far from God as one can get. He was openly opposing the message of Christ, and those who espoused it.
2. After he was saved, did Paul achieve humility right away, or begin his ministry immediately? No. He was not ready. He started off as a helpless blind person, before being healed and then being sent to the desert for three years of intensive preparation.
3. When Paul started writing his epistles, over a decade had passed since he had been saved, and a lot of training had been completed in the meantime. He was learning humility to equip him for the operation of his gifts.
4. Before he began his first missionary journey...and before he wrote his first epistle...he had come to recognize that it was not he that was doing God’s work...it was God. Specifically, it was God’s “grace”—operating through Paul’s gifts in the energy of the Spirit—that ended up doing the job.
5. So Paul could just sit back and watch God work, right? In a sense, yes...on the INSIDE. But results are manifested on the OUTSIDE? Paul “worked harder than them all”, even though it was God’s grace that was behind him. Paul knew he was the vessel, the instrument, the “least of all God’s people”, dependent on grace. (See Eph. 3:7-8.) And he was worked to the bone.
6. By recognizing his place in the kingdom, which was that of a “servant” of God (Eph. 3:7), Paul achieved humility, which opened wide avenues for service, resulting in the unfettered expression of grace through Him. God took this one, this “least” of all believers, and gave him the privilege of being the greatest single proponent of grace, and the best-known expositor of truths for living, in all of human history.
While Paul was doing all the phenomenal things that he accomplished, did he still have a sinful nature? Of course! That is why, in 1 Tim. 1:15, He said, “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst.” Does he mean that he was the “worst” before he was saved, and that after salvation he was forever pure? No.
After Paul was saved, he recognized that there was much work to be done, before he would be elevated above his position as the “worst”. Paul had been a distinguished scholar and public official in his society before he was saved, but salvation changed that altogether. No longer was he a powerful and influential man. He was ostracized and alone in a world quite foreign to the world he had known. The world had not changed, of course; Paul had changed.
As he grew, he learned that what he did, he did by grace, and not through existential superiority. In Paul’s recognition of being the worst, he was citing his past, even his growth history, during which time he spent a great deal of time living up to his label as the worst. Like all of us, he no doubt went through many failures before he learned how to operate in grace.
To succeed, Paul learned what we must all learn, as expressed by Andrew Murray:
He seeks to bring us low, until we so learn that His grace is all, as to take pleasure in the very thing that brings us and keeps us low. His strength made perfect in our weakness. His presence filling and satisfying our emptiness, becomes the secret of a humility that need never fail. (Endnote ... [p. 51, Humility])
There is a wrinkle, though, that we need to see in Paul’s growth pattern, which is going to seem a little odd when we present it, yet it is perfectly in line with all the things we have said before in God’s Training Program for Believers, Step by Step toward Surrender, Killing Sin before Sin Kills You, and Entering the Promised Land: Contentment at Last. The process of spiritual growth is seen in these books, consisting of steady advancement in one’s faith, and commitment to God’s plan and will. Sufficient progress can eventually lead to super-maturity, which is what Paul ultimately attained. We will get to Paul’s “surprising pattern” shortly. First, a little more on his maturity...and ours.
The thing we discovered in the earlier studies just listed is that a few Christians along the way are able to achieve an extraordinary level of maturity that enables them to surrender completely to God’s will, where they will experience victory over sin and receive unprecedented blessings of all kinds. The spiritual strength acquired through this process enables a mature believer to serve without the weights and impediments that hamper pre-maturity living. Through super-maturity, a believer learns to walk entirely by the power of the Holy Spirit, and to live in yieldedness to His direction.
It is apparent that Paul achieved this. He came from the “least” to a time of “holiness”. And here’s the surprise: If Paul was mature and “holy”...and knew it...how can this measure up to the notion of humility? Here is how: Humility is ultimately a full recognition of GRACE. There is no question that Paul became a powerful, surrendered believer through grace, which brought him to HUMILITY. His humble attitude was completely directed toward God, and became, as we shall see later, overlaid with FAITH. The blend of mature humility and faith erupted into FULL CONFIDENCE in God’s workings, with this outcome: Paul KNEW that he had arrived, at last, at his spiritual destination, where he trusted God completely, while God worked unreservedly. This is what we see in 2 Cor. 1:12, as follows:
Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted (behaved) ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are from God. We have done so not according to worldly wisdom but according to God’s grace.
The resolution to our surprise about Paul is that he knew he was living in the power and wisdom of grace (or “by the Spirit”), and he knew he had achieved “holiness”...but he also knew that what was his did not come from him. What was being generated was not his own righteousness or perfection...but that which comes FROM GOD. On the surface, his confidence may have looked like pride, which would come as a shock from such a great believer. But Paul’s knowing that he was “holy” was actually an expression of humility, because he acknowledged the source of the good that was flowing through him. Paul was mature enough to be “holy”, to know it, and to remain humble.
Don’t try this at home, because you and I are not prepared for this. We have not reached super-maturity; we are just far enough along to see the concept, though we are not yet able to live it. We still live in a universe in which we are the center, and where anything good must be generated by us. We still fail miserably. We may count on God now and then, but NOT FULLY, as Paul did! The door is open to us, though; we can grow into a closer walk with God, so that we will gradually gain understanding of the place of God in our lives and in all of creation, and this will eventually lead us to full maturity. Paul himself learned through a means which Murray described well, as follows:
It [humility] can, as [with] Paul, in full sight of what God works in us and through us, ever say, “In nothing was I behind the chiefest apostles [2 Cor. 11:5], though I am nothing” [Eph. 3:8a]. His humiliations had led him to true humility, with its wonderful gladness and glorying and pleasure in all that humbles. (Endnote ... [p. 51, Humility])
Paul came from the “least” to the “chiefest”, but was still nothing, as grace was everything. And through such advanced awareness, Paul achieved “holiness”.
The big lesson for us is that God will teach us humility, and bring us to recognize, if we are willing, that only God can be God. While we are growing, as long as we are promoting ourselves instead of Him, we will be blocking His place in us. Humility invites Him; pride slams the door on Him. Conclusion: Humility opens the door to His life in us. When we master this, we will be able to say, with Paul, “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). That is our objective.
Paul and Confession. Murray gives an eye-opening description of Paul’s humility, as seen in its most concrete form, which is the “confession of sins”. Forgive a lengthy quote from Murray’s Humility, none of which can be properly omitted for us to fully understand Paul’s confession of sins, as follows:
The true aspect of what these expressions of St. Paul teach us comes out all the more strongly when we notice the remarkable fact that, through his whole Christian course, we never find from his pen, even in those epistles in which we have the most intensely personal unbosoming, anything like confession of sin. Nowhere is there any mention of shortcoming or defect, nowhere any suggestion to his readers that he has failed in duty, or sinned against the law of perfect love. On the contrary, there are passages not a few in which he vindicates himself in language that means nothing if it does not appeal to a faultless life before God and men. ‘Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily, and righteously, and unblameably we behaved ourselves toward you’ (1 Thess. 2:10). ‘Our glorying is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity of God we behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly to you ward’ (2 Cor. 1:12). This is not an ideal or an aspiration; it is an appeal to what his actual life had been. However we may account for this absence of confession, all will admit that it must point to a life in the power of the Holy Ghost, such as is but seldom realized or expected in these our days.
Paul had surrendered to God, had achieved victory over sin, and had received God’s rest (or “contentment”), because he had reached super-maturity and received the “fullness of God”. He had learned concentrated humility, and knew that everything he did, every “service” he rendered, was an accomplishment of God’s Spirit within him, and God’s grace around him. Because he had developed such a complete faith in God’s love and power, he was able to live virtually “sin-free”. Hence the absence of confession.
This is possible for us, as it was for Paul. We can reach the level of faith and communion with God that we, too, can exhibit a level of cleanliness and devotion that will make confession a rare necessity. Not now, mind you, but this is potential within the future life of any true seeker of God, any believer dedicated to growth.
Paul on Humility before Men. We have largely been examining humility before God, and now want to see what Paul said about humility before men. To compact this discussion, which deserves more attention than we have space for here, we will cite several scriptures that establish the place of humility in the way believers treat, and respond to, each other.
Remember that the concentration of our love and service will lie in the area of our gifts. Outside our gifted areas, we are to have gentle compassion toward all believers, but the broader application of this requirement to “love” will represent a kind of “sweeping in the corners”, which is the product of great maturity. We see in the following passages a call for us to allow the love of God to flow through us toward others:
· Eph. 5:21—“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” The source for love and regard for each other comes out of our relationship with and attitude toward Jesus Christ. When we are in fellowship and moving toward Him, we will be learning to “submit” to each other, rather than always trying to keep the “upper hand”.
· Col. 3:12-14—“Therefore, as God chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” With humility arising out of maturity, we will be able to be filled and covered with godly love. This will include patience and gentleness toward those who are coming along behind us.
· Eph. 4:2—“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” Once again, as we mature, we will exhibit humility and patience toward fellow believers. Believers are more “trying”, or harder to work with, because they have pressures from training, as well as increased Satanic attacks, which can make them much more stubborn and irascible than unbelievers. Dealing with believers requires MATURITY!
· Matt. 23:11-12—“The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Self-promotion by believers is challenging to those around them, and is detrimental to personal fellowship with God, as well as peaceful relations with each other. Real service cannot mix with self-advancement. Service for praise is NOT service.
· Rom. 12:10—“Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.” When we see others as “above” us, we will take on the attitude of a servant. This is the standard; the means is maturity.
· 1 Cor. 13:4-6—“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” Love, the primary manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and the symbol of fellowship with Him, is expressed through our gifts. It is clear, then, that gifts will not operate, if love is absent. If you want to know if you are operating in a correct way spiritually, look at the indicators for love just given. If they are not seen in your attitude and demeanor, you have some work to do. Come along; I will join you.
· Gal. 5:13—“You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.” The sinful nature drags us in a hundred different directions, all of them away from God. But when the Holy Spirit, rather than our nature, is in control, we can serve each other as a statement of our love and fellowship.
· Philippians 2:3—“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Once again, we see the ugly “SELF” rearing its ugly head, keeping us from humility and service.
How could Paul be more emphatic on our responsibility to stay in fellowship, grow, and reach a level of maturity that will enable us to be humble and to love and serve others? If we have any concrete seriousness about God in our lives, we must acknowledge our need to grow and to serve, followed by definite steps to make these happen. Growing IN grace, and BY grace, we will learn how to serve, which for us is to learn how to really live.
Faith and Humility. We cannot have faith if we do not have humility. Faith and humility travel together. As faith grows, humility grows; and as humility increases, faith thrives. Once again, we turn to Murray in the following for clarity and insight, to help us understand the relationship between humility and faith:
We need only think for a moment what faith is. Is it not the confession of nothingness and helplessness, the surrender and the waiting to let God Work? Is it no in itself the most humbling thing there can be—the acceptance of our place as dependents, who can claim or get or do nothing but what grace bestows? Humility is simply the disposition which prepares the soul for living on trust. And every, even the most secret breathing of pride, in self-seeking, self-will, self-confidence, or self-exaltation, is just the strengthening of that self which cannot enter the kingdom, or possess the things of the kingdom, because it refuses to allow God to be what He is and must be there—the All in All. (Endnote ... [pp. 41-42, Humility])
Faith is the means to recognizing God; humility is the response to what we see. We see God because we trust Him and believe what we learn about Him. And we are humbled by what we come to understand. When we look at the world, our pride is fed, either with what we have, or with what we imagine that we might get. But when we look at God, humility increases, as faith is growing. Murray concludes this thought with these words:
Faith is the organ or sense for the perception and apprehension of the heavenly world and its blessings. Faith seeks the glory that comes from God, that only comes where God is All. As long as we take glory from one another, as long as ever 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 receive the glory that comes from God. Pride renders faith impossible. (Endnote ... [p. 42, Humility])
Humility is attached to all spiritual engagements, including confession, prayer, study, trusting, and endurance. And it is the center-piece for all our relationships with fellow believers. There is no separating any part of the Christian life from humility. Murray said, “It is the humility that brings a soul to be nothing before God, that also removes every hindrance to faith, and makes it fear lest it should dishonor Him by not trusting Him wholly”. (Endnote ... [p. 42, Humility]) What does our life with God require, more than any other condition? Humility! Murray puts the cap on this by saying the following:
...absolute, unceasing, universal humility must be the root-disposition of every prayer and every approach to God as well as of every dealing with man; and that we might as well attempt to see without eyes or live without breath, as believe or draw nigh to God or dwell in His love, without an all-pervading humility and lowliness of heart.
We must not expect to ever reach super-maturity and surrender, if we leave humility behind at any point. If we expect to have great faith, we must first have great humility. Matt. 8:5-13, tells of a centurion, who—wanting Jesus to heal the servant he had left at home—reported the illness to Him. Jesus said, “I will go and heal him.” The centurion responded to the offer, saying, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.” Jesus was amazed at this, and said to the centurion, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.” And, of course, the servant was healed. The lesson: faith reflects humility. (Endnote ... [p. 42, Humility])
In Matt. 15:21-28, a Canaanite woman is reported to have come to Jesus, confronting Him with her daughter’s problem of demon possession. The disciples tried to get Jesus to send her away, but He replied to them: “I was sent only to lost sheep of Israel.” Implication: the “sheep” would not include her, because she is not of Israel. The woman cried, “Lord, help me!” His reply to her was, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs,” referring again to her not being a Jew. She replied to Him, “Yes, Lord...but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” She was saying she would take the off-fall of His ministry, which was more than she had from Him at the time. Even a small piece of His healing would be an enormous blessing to her. Jesus answered, saying,
“Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” The Canaanite woman had accepted the label of a “dog”, which showed her humility, and she accepted even the smallest favor from Jesus, knowing that it would be a big thing, if it came from Him. (Endnote ... [p. 42, Humility])
We see, then, that faith and humility are symbiotic qualities, which support each other and respectively reinforce mutual purposes.
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