The soul either lives and acts by the power and love of self or it lives and acts by the power and love of God. The proud soul lives and acts out of love for self. The proud soul can be very religious and can even be a pope or a preacher. The proud soul that lives and acts by the power and love of self can imitate virtually all outward Christian acts. The proud soul can also imitate many of the inward things of Christianity though only on the outside. The proud soul can also be very deceived and even convince itself that it is spiritual. But the humble soul has been emptied of self and can do nothing apart from what it receives from its vine who is Christ (John 15). The humble soul sees itself as an empty vessel which is empty of self and needs to be full of God. While it is true that on the outside one might not see much difference between those that live by the power of self and those that live by the power of God, there is a massive difference on the inside. The reign of self is really to be like the devil while the reign of God in the soul is to have the life of Christ in the soul.
“God wished to reveal Himself in and through created beings by communicating to them as much of His own goodness and glory as they were capable of receiving. But this communication was not a giving to the creature something which it could possess in itself, a certain life or goodness, of which it had the charge and disposal. By no means. But as God is the ever-living, ever-present, ever-acting One, who upholdeth all things by the word of His power, and in whom all things exist, the relation of the creature to God could only be one of unceasing, absolute, universal dependence. As truly as God by His power once created, so truly by that same power must God every moment maintain. The creature has not only to look back to the origin and first beginning of existence , and acknowledge that it there owes everything to God; its chief care, its highest virtue, its only happiness, now and through all eternity, is to present itself an empty vessel, in which God can dwell and manifest His power and goodness.”
The last of the quote above is massively important to understand humility and the Christian life. If we understand humility as that which the soul can do for itself, then we will understand the Christian life a lot differently than we will if we see that humility is to be emptied of self so that it can be an empty vessel to be filled with God Himself who dwells in the truly humble soul. If the chief care of a soul is to be an empty vessel, then that is polar opposite to the chief care of the soul to be doing things out of self and self-love. If the chief care of the soul is to be an empty vessel which is to be empty of self, then surely it is self-evident that much of modern professing Christianity in its focus on self is opposite to biblical Christianity. The soul that must deny self in order to take up its cross and follow Christ will utterly abhor the teaching that we must love self in order to love others and then Christ.
As we gaze across the landscape of modern professing Christianity, we don’t hear the teaching that the chief happiness of the soul is to be an empty vessel. We hear that the soul must do this and that and it must buy this and that in order to become what God had planned for it and so God can bless it. But what we don’t hear is that God Himself is the greatest and only true blessing of the soul. God can give many things to unbelievers and do nothing but increase their eternal punishment. But when God gives Himself to the soul, He is then giving what is truly good to that soul. The only true and substantive joy in the universe is the joy that is within the Trinity and what He shares of that with His children. Until the soul is emptied of itself it will never know what true joy really is.
The humbled or emptied soul that comes to God and asks for Him to make it an empty vessel is the soul that understands how utterly dependent it is on God. The soul that has been emptied of self is the only kind of soul in the universe that will now be the dwelling place of God and therefore a place where God will manifest His goodness and His power. In the thinking of the older writers the love and grace of God flowed from His goodness. So in that line of thought the soul that is an empty vessel (true humility) is now full of the love and grace of God. It is this soul that depends on nothing but the power of God rather than the power of self. It is this soul that is moved by the love of God in it rather than the love of self. The humble soul that is emptied of self is a soul that now has the very joy and love of God in it (John 15:11; 17:13, 26) and would not trade that for anything or even all things in the world. The humble soul knows what it means to have a joy that is inexpressible and full of glory (I Peter 1:8). The humble soul knows what true life is while those with the life of self are really living death. How can one begin to utter words to get across to people who are full of self and are taught that to be full of the love of self is the best Christianity can offer? Humility (an empty of self vessel) is what God works in souls so that they can have Himself and share in His life. How can words even begin to describe that? Taste and see that the Lord is good.
God Loves... Himself 
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