It is so hard in a day of vast amounts of information at our fingertips in terms of the internet to focus on how different the acquisition of true knowledge is for the true believer. It is not possible to just look at a few or even several different scholarly commentaries and discern the truth of a passage. It is not possible for a man or woman to exercise great brilliance to discern the truth because spiritual truth can only be taught by the Holy Spirit. It is easy for believers to recognize that the natural man cannot understand the things of God, but it is harder for them to recognize that natural means cannot discover the depths of His glory either. We send men through seminary or other rigorous training methods to learn what human reason and methods can give them, but it is most likely very rare that they are really taught how to seek true knowledge from God. We teach believers in the churches to study their Bibles, but perhaps we are doing nothing but teaching them human methods if we don’t teach them the necessity of true humility. Yes, it is easy to read a book on humility and rest satisfied that we know what it is. But having humility is far different than knowing about it. Having Christ is also far different than knowing about Him.
“When I look back upon my own religious experience, or round upon the Church of Christ in the world, I stand amazed at the thought of how little humility is sought after as the distinguishing feature of the discipleship of Jesus. In preaching and living, in the daily intercourse of the home and social life, in the more special fellowship with Christians, in the direction and performance of work for Christ,-alas! how much proof there is that humility is not esteemed the cardinal virtue, the only root from which the graces can grow, the one indispensable condition of true fellowship with Jesus.” (Andrew Murray)
Matthew 18:1-4 and several other passages that teach the same thing seem to be ignored in our world: “At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, 3 and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 “Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” This text teaches us that there must be a humbling take place before a person is converted, and then it teaches us that the greatest person in the kingdom is really the most humble. It is not the greatest professor at seminary and it is not the most popular preacher. It is the most humble. This is something that is simply beyond the modern approach to the evangelism, to methods of church, and to sanctification. It is not exciting and the results (if gauged by numbers) would not be all that high. People would rather be thought of as humble rather than to really be humble. It is easier to get people to think we are humble than it is to be broken from our self-righteousness and pride in order to be humble. It is also the case that if we grow in humility that instead of others liking us they might hate us. The most humble One in history was hated and then crucified. Perhaps humility is something that is far different than imagined in the modern day.
If we reflect on what Andrew Murray has written about humility, we can see that he is right. Of course he was writing around one hundred years ago, but surely we can see that things have gotten worse rather than better. How little we see of humility and how little do we see a stress on humility. For example, I just looked on Ebay and looked to see how many books there were on humility. There were only 111. Without a specific count, my guess is that there are fewer than ten different books about humility and just several of each book. On the other hand, when I looked to see how many books were on love, I found over 50,000. I decided not to peruse the whole list, and I am sure that there are many fiction books there as well, but surely that makes a point. While the Bible does speak of the vital nature of love, the world has a lot to say about love too. Yet the world knows nothing of the life of humility since it knows nothing of the life of Christ in the soul. It is possible to obtain what the world calls love without humility, so we can see what happens in a church when we accept the world’s idea of love. Yet for true Christianity we must also know that without humility there is no true love at all. Paul taught that there nothing a Christian can do without love that has any real benefit, and yet without humility there is no true love.
As we begin to think of this concept a little more, does Scripture mention the humility of Christ or of the love of Christ more? Did Jesus teach more about humility or about love? It has been established several times that Jesus taught three times more on wrath and judgment than He did on love and heaven. Though Paul taught us that the greatest thing is love, yet Jesus taught us that the most humble person is the greatest in the kingdom. Did they contradict each other? Of course they did not. Instead the best solution would be to see the two as working hand in hand. The most humble is the one that loves the most and in that way is most like Jesus which is true greatness.
God Loves... Himself 
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