God Loves… Himself

If the distinguishing mark of being a disciple of Christ is humility, and those things like love which flow from and through humility, then we need to be sure that we know what humility really is. What would happen to the automobile industry if someone began to replace gas with water and still use the word “gas” for what went in the tank? Cars would not run and many would probably be destroyed over a period of time. The point is that the very fuel that a car runs on would still be called “gas” but the nature of it would be changed into something that is destructive to the car. The same thing has happened to Christianity. Many things in the professing Church have changed in concept because of the biblical idea of humility has been changed to one of the world and then lost. There is no prayer without true humility, so the professing Church is weak because it is without true prayer. Sure it still does something it thinks of as prayer, but it is not true prayer because true humility is needed. True understanding of God and of His Word cannot take place apart from humility. All efforts to understand the Bible apart from humility do nothing but build pride in the soul (I Cor 8:1). Knowledge, that is, non-spiritual knowledge pumps the soul up with pride. Preaching is nothing but an act of self-glorification unless the preacher is truly humble. A non-humble preacher is one full of self and pride and even though he may preach orthodox sermons, he is preaching out of love for self. The professing Church has been devastated by the departure of true humility.

“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)

If humility is truly an indispensable condition for true fellowship with Jesus, then the professing Church cannot fellowship with Christ apart from humility. Surely this is part of the definition of eternal life and of what it means to be saved. In Matthew 18:3 Jesus says that a person must be converted and become like a little child to enter the kingdom. In the very next verse Jesus says that the greatest in the kingdom is the one that humbles self to be like a little child. But eternal life is to know God and His Son (John 17:3). I John 1:2-3 also has the idea of eternal life and fellowship with God as part of eternal life: “and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us-3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” Jesus Christ Himself is eternal life and fellowship with Him is the way to have fellowship with the Father. Humility is utterly necessary to be in the kingdom and so is an absolute necessity to fellowship with God since He opposes the proud and will only give grace to the humble.

What has been mentioned in this short article should be enough to set alarms off. Humility is necessary for eternal life and fellowship with God. Humility is necessary for a true understanding of the things of God. Humility is necessary for prayer. Humility is necessary for true preaching. The list could go on, but this should make the issue stand out. Salvation is far more than a simple prayer or walking an aisle. Salvation is far more than getting people to agree to a list of orthodox beliefs. But instead, something must happen to the soul in order to do those things. The soul must be emptied of self and broken of its pride. II Chr 7:14 tells us that we are to humble ourselves and pray. Humility goes before prayer. Isa 57:15 tells us that God only dwells with the contrite and lowly of spirit. Yet we want to retain our pride and our self-esteem and be Christians at the same time. It simply will not work in reality though it appears to have many who adhere to that belief. It is so easy to go through the motions of Christianity and not be disturbed in the pride of it all. It is so hard to die to self and the claims of self in pride.

Biblical Christianity is at a very, very low point in the United States and many other places as well. While replacing the biblical concept of humility with the one of the world is not the only reason, it is certainly linked. Joined with that is the idea of the true God being gradually watered down. But of course this is nothing but the work of the proud heart in suppressing the knowledge of the true God. Whatever the case, until the professing Church reaches a point of utter brokenness and sees how impoverished it really is, not much will change. Until we grow tired of self and pride nothing will change. We may change a few things here and there, but until we are deeply humbled and broken we will not want real change. Instead, we will just want things to be a little better.

Humility has virtually been lost in the modern professing Church. It is not that the word is not used and that there is no concept of something that the word refers to, but the biblical concept has virtually been lost. One reason for this, if I see it correctly, is that the world’s idea of humility has taken over. The world has inundated the professing Church with its ideas of humility and love. Imagine, then, the results of this if what I am saying is correct. Murray thought that humility was hardly sought after in his day. Imagine his amazement if he thought that the world has replaced the biblical thinking about humility with its own. If he was right that humility was “the only root from which the graces can grow, the one indispensable condition of true fellowship with Jesus” and that true humility has been replaced with the idea of the world. The professing Church would primarily be nothing more than a professing Church and true Christianity would be little known and even less lived.

“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)

It is a shocking thought to think how the world has invaded the Church and has taken it over by changing the concepts while using the same words. The Church was saturated with the self-esteem and self-love teaching of the world for years and so it no longer has any real idea of what true love is. But once the idea of true love was assaulted, the necessity of a true humility was under assault as well. Biblical humility and biblical love cannot be separated. Until souls are emptied of self and pride (humility), they will never love God and others as they will always be consumed with itself. As long as humility is thought of in terms of being unable to know the truth or a simple feeling that one has, humility will remain as an outworking of pride. Humility is for the creature to take its proper place before its Creator and to be emptied of self. Humility is for the creature to distrust self, but it is to trust in the Creator. Humility is to be emptied of self and pride so that the Creator will exercise His rights in and on the creature. This is the biblical teaching of humility as we can see from Philippians 2 and many other places.

The world has brought in a form of self-centeredness into the professing Church and as such has cast out true humility and true love. It is not that humility is simply one of the virtues and we limp along a little slower without it, but it is the very root of all the graces. There is no grace apart from humility and grace is what believers live and work in the strength of (Col 1:29; II Cor 12:9). It has been utterly devastating to biblical Christianity to have its very root of all graces be changed in conception. The biblical idea is that the soul is to be emptied of self and broken of pride so that God may dwell in the soul and manifest Himself through it. But the idea of humility was changed in order to preserve the self and even to puff up the self in the pursuit of self-esteem. The pursuit of self-esteem and the pursuit of the emptying of self which true humility requires are opposite of each other and one can only pursue one at a time. In fact, not only can a person pursue only one at a time but when one is pursued the other is left that much further behind. The two ideas are polar opposites.

Christianity is now seen by the world as weak people seeking to prop themselves up with mythical teaching. In many ways this is true. It has become little more than another way for people to seek themselves. The mythical teaching is true not because people are following the truth of Scripture and of God, but because people are following the ways of the world because the world has brought its teachings into the professing Church. The Bible does not teach that human beings must love themselves before they can love God and others, it teaches that human beings must be humbled and broken so that humans would have God dwelling in them and so the love of God dwelling in them. It is only when the love of God is in a person that a person can love anyone at all. Humility is utterly necessary for people to have love dwell in them. Humility is utterly necessary for a person to receive grace and grace alone. For the true believer, therefore, who lives by grace, humility is utterly necessary to live and to have Christ as his or her life. It is not that the world has just watered down Christianity by bringing a few false teachings in, but in the subtlety of the devil it has taken away that which is utterly necessary to be a Christian and for one to live by grace alone. God hates and fights the proud, even if they claim to be Christians. How utterly deadly it has been to have true humility replaced. Our nation is demonstrative evidence of a Church gone wrong.

In terms of the professing Church in our day, it is clear that whatever it is that is really being sought it is by methods and worldly principles. We seek “church” growth by using business principles and ways obtained from Hollywood. Sure, those methods might draw a crowd, but they do not attract God. Whatever else a church is to do, it is to seek God first and foremost. The Regulative Principle of Worship used to stand as something very important in terms of how God was to be worshipped. It has now virtually been dropped into the dust pile of history as it is ignored or simply explained away. Jesus told us very explicitly that God can only be worshipped in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24). In fact, the text tells us that God seeks people like that to be His worshippers. One of the things required to have worshippers like that is for God to make humble worshippers. The humble worshippers of God will look to His Word of self-revelation to find out how He says He is to be worshipped. The humble worshippers will look to His Word of self-revelation to find out how He says churches are to grow. Perhaps there needs to be a Regulative Principle of Church Growth since it is part of the worship of God. But the proud want churches to grow in numbers their own way and they want to worship their own way. But for those who desire to walk with God in worship and church growth they must seek humility first. When we seek to worship God as we want to do so, the god we really worship is ourselves. It is seeking to please self rather than to please God. “But I like it this way” is nothing more than to assert my desires instead of seeking God’s.

“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)

Murray calls humility as the distinguishing feature of the discipleship of Jesus. “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. 28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. 30 “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:27-30).
This text at least points to the utter necessity of what Murray said. Jesus calls the weary and heavy-laden to Himself. A person has been humbled to some degree to even see that as true. The unbroken proud do not see themselves as weary and heavy-laden as they are still blinded to sin. When a heavy-laden person comes to Christ for rest and is asked to take a yoke upon him, it takes great humility to truly believe those words and take the yoke. But the gentle humble Savior will only teach those in the yoke with Him His gentleness and humility. But of course those are not what the world thinks of as, so those things may bring ridicule and persecution.

A worldly humility is indeed sought in the professing Church by some, but that is not the same thing as a biblical humility. A biblical humility is to be emptied of self and pride, while a worldly humility seeks to bolster self and pride in an external form of humility. A biblical humility is one of the heart and of the soul. It is when the heart is emptied of self and pride. We can see this with the Pharisees. They would humble themselves to fast and pray, and yet it was only an external humility which is what the world has. They fasted and prayed in order to be seen by men which is what self-interest does and what self-love desires. The professing Church must learn to look to Jesus for its teaching and example of humility rather than the world. The world thinks that a humble person will not claim to know any religious truth for sure, but Jesus says that eternal life is to know God.

Humility is a sweet sound in the ear when one thinks of the humility of Christ. Yet humility is so sour to the ear when it is nothing more than what the world puts on. What does God see when He looks at the professing Church? Does He see the beauty of the humility of Christ in the soul or does He see foul and filthy souls of pride who are so proud that they cover themselves with the fig leaves of a false humility which is nothing but pride covering itself with pride? In the worship of the “church” does God see the humble Savior or does He see the rotten hearts of those who pretend to worship Him while they do what they want to do? In the “church” growth methods do we see the ways of Christ or of the proud man? Truly, humility is at the root of it all. May God teach many His ways.

Humility sounds good to some in the world, though only when it is applied to others or at times it wants others to think that self is less than proud. While Scripture teaches us that the greatest is the most humble we still prefer to be thought of as humble rather than to obtain true humility. When a church is looking for a pastor, this is largely ignored. They want a man that is educated, has charisma, personality, great speaking ability, and that can deal with people. But all of those things the natural man can have. Despite the fact that a man can be unregenerate and have all of those things, those are what people look for. They want what is impressive rather than what is utterly necessary for spiritual life. The unbelieving man can have each of the above things in abundance, but only the truly humble will love the people enough to teach the hard things. Only the humble pastor can be effective in the things of God. Only the humble pastor can ever preach the Word of God because he will have understanding that the proud man cannot have. So churches are seeking those who are great in the eyes of the world but are at best spiritual midgets. Perhaps they are seeking the man who is perfect on the outside, but in doing so they are seeking men that God is leaving alone. Those who have troubles are those that God is working on through trials.

“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)

Perhaps humility is so little sought after because people seek pastors with worldly qualifications rather than spiritual ones. A pastor that is more concerned about his suit and his hair than the depth of his walk with God is not likely to preach the deep things of God. A pastor that is taken with the external and impressive things is not likely to think much on the subject of humility other than how it can be perceived externally. A non-humble pastor will not truly understand the Gospel since pride is opposite to faith (Hab 2:4). A non-humble pastor will not be shown the things of God since “He leads the humble in justice, And He teaches the humble His way” (Psalm 25:9). Jesus praised the Father for hiding spiritual things from the wise and intelligent and for revealing them to babes. “At that time Jesus said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants” (Mat 11:25). Since Jesus does not change it seems unlikely that He is now revealing spiritual things to those who are wise and intelligent in their own eyes. The person that wants to be like Christ needs to seek humility at all cost. The local church that wants to be like Christ needs to seek pastors who are truly humble. If they do not, they may find a man with all the external characteristics but who is a midget in the kingdom if he is in the kingdom at all. It is true; in the nation of Israel they had prophets who were not truly prophets. Today we have ministers who are not truly converted.

I have never read of a conference where the subject matter was on humility. If someone did have one, it would probably be a series of lectures on the subject and people would leave thinking they were humble because they had heard about humility and now they knew what it was. For a person to ever have something of true humility that person must seek it and be willing to suffer to obtain it. For a church to seek true humility it must seek it and be willing to suffer to obtain it. Humility will not come through a lecture or a series of lectures. It will not come by reading a book. It will only be obtained by much inner pain as self is denied and then one dies to self. Psalm 25:9 tells us that God is the one that teaches the humble His way. The way to walk with God is to humbly walk with Him. There is no other way to walk with God. As Micah 6:8 instructs us, “He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?”

We can at least point to an important connection or correlation. Not many appear to be truly walking with God in our day. Not many churches appear to be walking with God. One reason is that He only walks with the humble. So when we see that not many are seeking true humility, we can know that there is at least a correlation between the two points. God stands in battle alignment against the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). The greatest grace is to have God Himself in our souls, yet He only walks with the humble. Until people and churches learn to seek humility, they will not have it and so will not have the presence of God in their midst.

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.

In the last BLOG we looked at the beauty of God and how His glory is His true beauty. It is only the humble soul that will see His true glory (John 11:40) and it is only the humbled soul that His glory dwells in and shines in and through. This is a fundamental but often overlooked truth, and perhaps it is because Christianity has been overcome with rationalism in some ways. We would like to think that because we can think of His glory that we can see His glory. While there is a rational aspect of His glory, if we just leave it there we will not behold the true glory of God because that part cannot be rationally apprehended. The beauty of God must be seen in the soul and only the humble will be ravished with His beauty rather than their own. Until the soul is humbled from its pride the soul will be more concerned with its own honor and beauty than God’s.

“If Jesus is indeed to be our example in His lowliness, we need to understand the principles in which it was rooted, and in which we find the common ground on which we stand with Him, and in which our likeness to Him is to be attained. If we are indeed to be humble, not only before God but towards men, if humility is to be our joy, we must see that it is not only the mark of shame, because of sin, but, apart from all sin, a being clothed upon with the very beauty and blessedness of heaven and of Jesus. We shall see that just as Jesus found His glory in taking the form of a servant, so when He said to us, ‘Whosoever would be first among you, shall be your servant,’ He simply taught us the blessed truth that there is nothing so divine and heavenly as being the servant and helper, of all…When we see that humility is something infinitely deeper than contrition, and accept it as our participation in the life of Jesus, we shall begin to learn that it is our true nobility.” (Andrew Murray)

If we approach this from the rational point of view, we will see some things in biblical texts that are admirable. We will see Jesus washing the feet of the disciples and have a rational admiration for that. But if our souls are being humbled, we are then enabled to behold the glory and beauty of Jesus in doing that. The world saw no beauty in Jesus though many of them saw miracles and received free food and wine. The world saw nothing all that attractive about Jesus. He was, after all, externally speaking nothing but an average Jewish male. But to God and to those with the humble eyes of faith, they are enabled to see the beauty of God in Him.

Isaiah 53:1 – “Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. 3 He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.”

The world despised Him and His cross. The world still despises the cross and when Christ is truly presented they still despise Him. When the truth of Christ is watered down to where they think of Him as centered on them and in a non-threatening way to their self-rule, they will speak of Him as a good teacher. One way to think of this is seen in John 5:44, though admittedly it is a painful view: “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?” Here is a devastating view of the self. The natural human soul desires to receive glory from men rather than the glory that is from God. One reason for this is that it puffs up the human soul to receive glory from others and yet the glory of God humbles it into the dust.

The cross is despised because it is so humbling to the pride of men. Many teachers in the modern day have taken the true meaning of the cross away and now say that is shows how much God values man and so how much we should value ourselves. But that misses the whole point entirely. The cross shows how wicked and sinful human beings really are and it displays the true glory and beauty of God. It tells us about the beauty of grace and love. The cross puts the beauty of the justice of God on display. While on the cross the glory of God shone brighter than ever before and proud souls hate it unless it is watered down or the focus is taken off of the glory of God. The cross is a hideous place in one sense and yet in another it is ravishingly beautiful because of the beauty of God on display there. Christ is not esteemed when the truth of who He is and what He has done is held forth unless it is watered down and changed into a man-centered system. Only a humble soul can see the glory and beauty of God and bow to the God displayed there and want nothing more than to be like the Jesus who shone with such beauty and glory.