God Loves… Himself

Let me start by restating a comment from the last BLOG. If [2] from below is based on the idea that grace is what the human soul is able to come up with (by obtaining humility), then the devil has turned the idea of grace into something that human beings can at the very least assist themselves in obtaining. That would change the biblical concept of humility into a human concept of works or a way to obtain grace. The quotes below are from a recent but unnamed book that I am using as a background in an effort to show forth the true beauty of the grace of God.

“[1] In this study, you’ll be learning about the character trait of humility…[2]You’ll learn that God rewards humility. [3] You’ll study about an angel and some people who allowed pride to enter into their hearts, and you’ll see what happened to them because of it….[4] You’ll also study about the punishment for pride…[5] To humble yourself means to make yourself low. How do you make yourself low? You make yourself low by not thinking more highly of yourself than you think of others. You make yourself low by putting others first-above yourself…[5] Humble people are selfless people….[6] Humble people admit that they have faults and weaknesses. [7] Humble Christian people admit that they are nothing without God. They admit that apart from God, they can do nothing.”

The Gospel is the Gospel of grace and nothing but grace. “He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved” (Eph 1:5-6). “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Eph 2:4-9). Whatever humility is, it must fit with the idea of grace presented in these passages of Scripture. Grace is based on the character of the triune God and He shows grace based on Himself rather than on the works or merit of human beings. In order to receive grace as grace, then, a person must be emptied of any idea of merit or works to obtain grace.

From [3] above (in light of the other statements) we can see wrong ideas of pride and of humility. What we must understand about pride in the heart is that we don’t have to allow pride in the heart. The natural human being is full of pride. The heart exudes pride in all that it thinks and does. Humility, then, is not just something that can be put on here and there, but it requires a new heart. For the believer who has a new heart the devil constantly wants the believer to look to self, merit, works or something that is not in line with God’s free and glorious grace. But when we think of allowing pride to enter the heart, pride is not something that can be defeated by the self of the human heart. The human heart must bow in humility before God and ask Him to take pride from the heart. The battle is constantly over what I can do and what grace can do. Pride, as Jesus instructed His disciples regarding demons, can only be cast out by prayer and fasting (Mat 15:17-21).

The last part of [3] and then [4] tend to have the same idea. It is not that it is wrong to think that God punishes pride, but we must be careful of how we think of these things. As we can see from Romans 1:18-32 God punishes sin by hardening the heart and turning it over to more and more sin. The nature of sin is that it leads to its own punishment and even more punishment. God does not always specifically work to cause bad things to happen to people because of pride, but bad things happen to people when they are proud. A heart that has pride will be turned over to more and more pride. A proud heart will excuse and justify its own sin. So it is left to more and more sin. But a proud heart may not recognize what is happening to it especially if God gives the soul external things.

One way we can be led astray by thinking in terms of [3] and [4] is that we can be led to think that humble people have good things happen to them and proud people have bad things happen to them. This is not the way that God has set out. Instead He disciplines those He loves and brings hard and fiery trials on them to teach and train them. If we are not careful, we will think that God is punishing us when in fact He is working in us so that we may share His holiness (Heb 12:10). God may leave the proud to themselves and they may have an easy life full of outwardly good things. If a person is deceived into an outward and self-centered humility, that can be eternally fatal.

In an effort to look at a biblical view of humility, I will be setting out some erroneous views and contrast those with the biblical view. In the last BLOG I quoted from a recent book that gives a modern view of humility, but one that is desperately wrong. I will repeat the quotes below and then get into some discussion on the statements. I will insert numbers so that the statements will not have to be repeated. The hope is that by setting out false views in contrast to the truth that the truth will be seen even more clearly. But the errors that so pervade our day in biblical dress will be seen for what they are. If the devil is able to steal the idea of humility and mix his poison in it, he will reign in the professing Church under the guise of biblical truth. This is really that serious. Once the idea of humility is changed, then grace becomes something far different and salvation and sanctification become by works.

“[1] In this study, you’ll be learning about the character trait of humility…[2]You’ll learn that God rewards humility. [3] You’ll study about an angel and some people who allowed pride to enter into their hearts, and you’ll see what happened to them because of it….[4] You’ll also study about the punishment for pride…[5] To humble yourself means to make yourself low. How do you make yourself low? You make yourself low by not thinking more highly of yourself than you think of others. You make yourself low by putting others first-above yourself…[5] Humble people are selfless people….[6] Humble people admit that they have faults and weaknesses. [7] Humble Christian people admit that they are nothing without God. They admit that apart from God, they can do nothing.”

In [1] above we can see the issue raised about humility being a character trait. A few BLOGS ago some verses from Proverbs were given. Three of those verses will be listed below:

Proverbs 15:8 – “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, But the prayer of the upright is His delight. 15:29 The LORD is far from the wicked, But He hears the prayer of the righteous. 16:5 Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; Assuredly, he will not be unpunished.”

If humility is nothing but a character trait that the soul (as in [1] above) puts on by the efforts of self, we can see that the prayer of the upright is the person with enough character traits. If the LORD hears the prayer of the righteous, yet righteousness is obtained by a person working to obtain character traits, then prayers are answered on the basis of the righteousness obtained by self-effort. If those who are proud in heart are abominations to the LORD, yet humility is obtained by the effort of self, it is by the works of self in obtaining humility that we are not an abomination to the LORD. What we have to understand is that the word “character” can be meant in different ways. If character is simply those things that we have to work up, then much of the Bible is built on human works though that is not how it is presented. If humility is a character trait, then the ramifications are enormous. Scripture tells us that God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. If humility is a character trait to put on by human self-effort, then God gives grace to those who exert self-effort enough to put on humility. Put simply, that destroys any idea of the biblical teaching of grace. The grace of God is sovereign grace or it is not grace at all.

Romans 11:6 is a determining verse on the matter: “But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.” If we think of humility as something we work up and are in control of, then we have made grace out to be that which comes by our works and so grace is no longer grace. If [2] from above is based on the idea that grace is what the human soul comes up with, though many would admit that God must help it, then the devil has turned the idea of grace into something that human beings can at the very least assist themselves in obtaining. Instead of just assuming that humility is a virtue that the soul can obtain by some self-effort helped along by the grace of God, we must look to the Scripture for the truth of what grace is and what humility is. We cannot understand one without the other. What is obtained by works will never obtain grace.

Philippians 2 has the core issue of humility. “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Humility is to be emptied of self. If we are emptied of self it cannot be self doing the work and self cannot obtain humility to receive grace or grace would not longer be grace. The soul must be emptied of self by grace so grace is always grace.

Humility is so misunderstood in our day and probably because we live in a spiritually dark days. We live in a time that has more information and data than at any time before. But that is not the same as a deep understanding of divine things. Many movements have arisen to help in raising children. Quality information for that is good as well. However, how many of these things are built on solid theology? I listened to video series in the last two years by a “raising kid’s guru” and found the man to be a Pelagian in his theology. Even assuming that his techniques worked in terms of getting kids to obey, can we assume that the Pelagian theology behind those techniques are teaching us biblical methods to raise kids? External morality apart from Christ is idolatry. Raising kids to be externally moral is most likely nothing more than acts of idolatry. We might want the kids to be moral so that we can be seen as good parents and feel good about ourselves. If we get the kids to some form of external behavior based on wrong theology and wrong attitudes, we have helped create a Pharisee in ourselves and in them.

In a fairly recent book (2001), written as a Bible curriculum for children for church or school (it shall remain unnamed to protect the guilty), the first chapter has statements like these in the first page of the first lesson:

“In this study, you’ll be learning about the character trait of humility. You’ll learn what humility is, and that pride is the opposite of humility…You’ll learn that God rewards humility. You’ll study about an angel and some people who allowed pride to enter into their hearts, and you’ll see what happened to them because of it….You’ll also study about the punishment for pride…To humble yourself means to make yourself low. How do you make yourself low? You make yourself low by not thinking more highly of yourself than you think of others. You make yourself love by putting others first-above yourself…Humble people are selfless people….Humble people admit that they have faults and weaknesses. Humble Christian people admit that they are nothing without God. They admit that apart from God, they can do nothing.”

The statements as stated above can have some good in them, but if humility is taken as nothing more than a choice and as nothing more than a character trait that a human puts on, then the statements above demonstrate a system of thinking that has a proud heart deceiving itself into thinking that it is humble. Is humility a character trait? Again we have to ask ourselves what that means. If a person’s character is something that s/he adds to and develops by hard work, then humility will be seen as an attitude that the person works on to develop in self or perhaps as changes in the self that hard work can attain. It will probably not be denied that this can only happen by grace, but that is simply stating that it is by grace rather than having humility by grace alone. However, stating that humility is by grace is different than actually obtaining humility by grace. It is part of the blindness of the age that we live in that thinks that believing something is the same thing as obtaining what we believe.

Let me use one example to show how awful it is to assume something of character rather than actually being what we assume. Preachers are very different from one another and the preaching of those preachers can also be very different. However, every single preacher in the world is either humble or proud to some degree. We can imagine a very proud preacher that wants to appear humble. We can then think of that preacher saying things in the sermon to amuse and impress other fallible sinners. If we have any spiritual sense about us, we know that if a preacher preaches to amuse or impress human beings for self-centered purposes that the preaching is actually very wicked. A proud man will be opposed by God in his very preaching. A proud man will not receive grace for preaching. It is a wicked thing for a man to try to impress himself or others by his preaching. The goal of preaching must be so that God would be glorified and human beings would then love God and be used to glorify Him.

Now, surely it is obvious that if we raise our children and they become externally moral in an effort to please their parents, themselves, and other people that they are idolaters in their very external morality. Scripture teaches us that knowledge makes us proud (I Cor 8:1), but do we often think that knowledge of morality can also make us proud? Scripture teaches us that there is nothing we can do that does not have love that is of any benefit (I Cor 13). Do we think of this in terms of our own morality and the morality of our children? We must also realize that it is not love for God to be moral or the Pharisees would have been moral in all their externalized religion. But it is only when the love of God abides in us and we love God and what we do is a manifestation of His love in us is our morality then truly moral. If we teach external morality rather than internal love then this can be nothing more than the same attitude of the Pharisees. If we teach a humility attained by human effort, we are teaching pride instead.

In the last BLOG we looked primarily at the need for humility in Bible study. Perhaps that is a new subject or one that has not been thought of a lot by many, but surely it points us to the utter need for humility in Bible study. If we are not humbled, which is to be emptied of self and pride, we will do Bible study for self and pride. If we do not have the presence of the Spirit in us in power sharing love for God with us, we will do our study out of love for self. Apart from a deep humility we will do our study in the power of self rather than the power of grace. The same thing is true of prayer. If we are not humbled, we will pray from love for self and pray for the things of self. We may offer religious platitudes or from self-love and pride know that we are to pray in a spiritual manner, but we will not pray out of a broken heart and love for God and His glory. When we pray from the power of self, that is idolatry. When we pray out of love for self, that is idolatry. When our prayer is for self, that too is idolatry. Surely, then, it is obvious that humility is utterly necessary for true prayer.

Daniel 10:12 – “Then he said to me, ‘Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words.'”

If it is the case that all we do in the strength of self and for the purposes of self is idolatry, then it is obvious that most of the prayers in our lives have been nothing less than idolatry. This is simply to say that apart from humility prayer is an idolatrous act of the soul. Perhaps what follows will sound harsh, as if what was said previously was not, but we need to hear things like this in order to be awakened from our proud and self-centered slumbers. The verses below tell us very clearly that our prayers may be nothing but an abomination to the LORD.

Proverbs 15:8 – “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD, But the prayer of the upright is His delight.”

Proverbs 15:29 – “The LORD is far from the wicked, But He hears the prayer of the righteous.”

Proverbs 16:5 – “Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; Assuredly, he will not be unpunished.”

Proverbs 28:9 – “He who turns away his ear from listening to the law, Even his prayer is an abomination.”

When these verses are looked at as a unit, it should hit us very hard. We might try to squirm out of 15:8 and 15:29, but know that pride is a wicked thing to the LORD and so the sacrifice of the proud and the religious activity of the proud are abominations to the LORD. The Law (28:9) prescribes humility. When we turn away our ear from that, it tells us that even our prayers are abominations. All the other things are too, but even the most religious and spiritual thing we do is an abomination to the LORD. Without humility our prayers are abominations to the LORD. This is not something to play games with or to ignore, but it tells us that we must pursue humility at all costs. Every moment that we are not humble we are not seeking God but self in all that we do. It takes our religious actions and makes them nothing but abominations to God. Humility is not a subject that we can just ignore or put on the back burner except to our eternal peril.

We can imagine a person in a deep and dark jungle praying to a statue. We know that is idolatry. But what about us when we are praying to ourselves and for ourselves? “The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector” (Luke 18:11). It is certainly possible to pray to ourselves because without humility we are not praying to God though we may use His name as the Pharisee certainly did. The Pharisee was his own god in this prayer despite the address to the living God. Our prayers can also have the same focus that the Pharisee had and as such they are to ourselves as well. Matthew 6:5 also says this: “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.” Prayer for the purposes of self means a prayer that is not to God. Surely our desperate need for humility before and during prayer is seen. Apart from humility we are nothing more than the Pharisees. Even if we don’t use the same words the Pharisees did, we can still have that attitude in our hearts.

What about preachers and their prayers? Do they just pray to do their duty and get through the service? Do they pray to get an amen from the people? Do they pray to get people to think highly of them as they pray? What is their highest motive in prayer? What is their greatest love in prayer? We can’t just pray. The point that I am trying to drive at is that we must all be humbled or our prayers are an abomination to God. Humility is that important.

Humility, when it is thought of, is thought of as an add on here and there, but not really all that necessary. We know that we are not to be proud, and so we think we are humble if we are not overly proud. But humility is so misunderstood in our day that it is most likely not even recognized. Yet it is utterly necessary for true spiritual life. It is utterly necessary for Bible study and for prayer. Dare it be said that it is utterly necessary for true preaching? We live in a day where it is thought that we are to fill our heads with knowledge by studying the Bible, ask God for the things we want, and then practice the Bible by going to church, being moral, and perhaps a few other good things. But we miss the utter necessity of humility to do those things in truth.

James 1:21 – “Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.”

Daniel 10:12 – “Then he said to me, ‘Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words.'”

In the verse in James above we see the need to receive the word in humility. In Daniel we see how that being humble before God in prayer is necessary. It is probably rare for us to recognize the pride in our hearts when we study the Bible and pray or do religious things. We don’t understand how wicked our hearts are in our pride to presume to go to the Scriptures in order to understand them and do so in reliance upon our intellect and ourselves. The Scriptures can only be understood when God gives us understanding by grace. How dare we think we can understand any spiritual nugget apart from Him? Do we really think that we can understand spiritual things by simply studying it as unbelievers do their books? If one wants to understand the message of God in the Bible, the soul must be humbled first and foremost.

Studying the Bible is nothing more than an act of pride in many cases. We go to it in pride as if we can understand it apart from the grace of God and we go to it to gain an understanding of something so we can appear spiritual in the eyes of others. In other words, we go to it in pride and are trying to learn something for the sake of our pride. In that case we are seeking ourselves rather than God and as such we are idolaters in our Bible study. We would not argue that the Pharisees were wicked and sinful men in their seeking themselves in their religious activities, but we don’t realize that we are just like them when we seek ourselves in our Bible study. The Pharisees sought the honor of men in what they did, but so do we when we want to impress others with what we have learned.

We are also idolaters in our Bible study because we study out of self-love rather than love for God. One can also study the attributes of God and many other things simply out of self-love. The point is that the truly humble soul will study the Scriptures out of love for God with a desire for God and His glory. The proud do Bible study in order to exalt self and to obtain honor for self in spiritual things rather than a desire to love God. That is nothing more or less than to bow before the shrine of self and do homage to self. Proud preachers study the Bible in order to develop a sermon in order to gain honor for their knowledge or perhaps their piety. Preachers study their Bible so that they can present something at a conference in order to get others to think highly of them. That is idolatry as well. This is to say nothing of the fact that they are to preach out of love for His glory and honor rather than their own. This is one reason that there is so much spiritually weak preaching today. Preachers are full of themselves seeking things for themselves and as such they do not preach in His power. The Great Commandment is to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. If we do Bible study out of the strength or energy that comes from anything else other than love for God, we are doing it for pride and self and as such we are idolaters.

We commit idolatry when we do our Bible study when we look to self rather than grace. The believer is to live by grace and understand that s/he can do nothing apart from grace. The works that a believer does must be understood as having their root in grace and not as a work for something. Whatever we do that is not in humility is done in pride. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. God opposes our Bible study and our preaching when they are done in pride rather than in humility seeking Him. Our most cherished religious actions are idolatrous unless we are humbled first. It is not enough just to do them because just doing them is most likely pride. We must set our hearts to humbling ourselves before God that He would truly humble us and show us grace to His glory.

There is nothing in the Christian life that does not depend, in a manner of speaking, on the Christian being humble to some degree. There can be no growth in grace apart from humility because God only gives grace to the humble. So in one sense we can think of it as the greater the humility that is there the greater the grace that can be given. But we must be very careful at this point not to think of humility as a work in order to obtain grace. What we must understand is that humility can also only come to the soul by grace. It is grace preparing the soul to receive more grace. When Jesus told us in the context of the vine and the branches that we could do nothing apart from Him, He meant nothing rather than just a few things (John 15). We tend to dismiss the “nothing” in that text as perhaps nothing major and then think of ourselves as having the power to do the small things. Perhaps Jesus meant what He said (nothing). All spiritual growth in the soul and all spiritual fruit that the soul produces must come from Christ.

If we think and act as if we must humble our selves in order to receive grace, the logic of our position is that we are working in order to receive grace. James 4:10, along with I Peter 5:5-6 giving essentially the same teaching, tells us to “Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.” We are left with two choices as we view this verse. 1) We will believe that if we humble ourselves then God will do the work of exalting us. But this leaves us with a system that is essentially of works. 2) To humble ourselves means to realize that we cannot do the work of humility and that God must do that work in us as well and this is the true exaltation of the soul. This leaves us with a system of grace and not of works. It is faithful to the text and to the Bible as a whole. True humility, then, would see that it cannot truly humble itself but then bow to the work of God in the soul to work a humility that grows deeper and deeper in the soul. Another way to look at this as a whole would be to understand it as the Old Testament does at times which would be that the people were to do certain external things to humble themselves. But the inward work of casting out pride and self can only be done by God or it would be nothing more than the works of pride and self. If a proud person could humble self, then humility can be accomplished by a proud person. If humility can be accomplished by a self-centered person, then humility can be accomplished by a selfish and self-centered person. These things are simply not possible other than by twisting the meaning of words.

In the very back of his book on Humility Andrew Murray wrote this prayer which would be good for all:

“Lord, I pray that of Your great goodness You would make known to me, and take from my heart every kind and form and degree of pride, whether it be from evil spirits, or my own corrupt nature; and that you would awaken in me the deepest depth and truth of the humility that can make me capable of Your light and Holy Spirit.”

He also wrote the following words:

“The truth is this: pride must die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in you. Under the banner of the truth, give yourself up to the meek and humble spirit of the holy Jesus. Humility must sow the seed, or there can be no reaping in heaven. Do not look at pride as only an unbecoming temper, or at humility as only a decent virtue. The one is death, and the other is life; the one is all hell, the other is all heaven. As much as you have of pride within you, so you have of the fallen angel alive in you. As much as you have of true humility, so you have of the Lamb of God within you. If you could see what every stirring of pride does to your soul, you would beg of everything you meet to tear the viper from you, though it may mean the loss of a hand or an eye.”

It may sound as if humility is to stand around and wait for God to do it all, but that is not the whole story. We must set ourselves against the pride of our hearts and seek the Lord in prayer against the pride of our hearts and for His grace to tear it from us. We must learn to pray for humility and to seek the Lord for strength against self and its pride. This is spiritual warfare as it is the seed of the devil in us (pride) as we seek the seed of the woman (who is Christ) to crush the head of the devil which is pride in us. We must learn to fight the fight by realizing our utter impotence and His real strength. We must use the means of grace while knowing that those things are means of grace that He may show grace through, but also grace only comes in His timing. We are in a fight against our very selves. We must pray against ourselves (proud & natural self) in order that the spiritual self will grow by grace. It sounds so confusing to some, but as people learn to battle within their souls it becomes clearer.

Another reason humility is so hard to write on is because it is a spiritual issue and many seem to think of it in the physical or natural realm. To speak of humility is to speak of humility in the soul and even in the deepest part of the soul. But the pride of human beings is so great that they are blinded to their pride by their pride and so it is not inconsistent with the greatest amount or control of pride to think of one as humble. A proud heart wants to think of itself as humble and will fight to think of itself as humble. As the self-righteous soul wants to constantly justify its sin to others and to self, so the proud soul wants to justify itself as humble. In other words, those who read this may enter into a spiritual war. The devil wants to keep people proudly humble (so to speak). An oxymoron can occasionally be put to good use. The Pharisees give us an example of those who were proudly humble. They would mess up their hair and try to look bad in order to make it appear that they were suffering as they were fasting. To make a bad pun, they were being quick (fast) to the appearance of humility in order to bolster their spiritual pride.

What anyone must see if they truly desire true humility that this is a spiritual issue that is far beyond the strength of the natural man. Our pride wants to blind us to this and then deceive us to think that we have become humble while we are still in the grip of our pride. But Jesus Christ will work this in His people so if you know that you desire true humility, seek it from Him rather than your own works. It takes prayer and submission to Him to show you your pride and then it takes His grace in order for you to die to your pride in that particular issue. There will be times when your heart will scream (and perhaps your lips) when you think that He has pushed you beyond what you can handle. When you arrive at that point, and He will assuredly bring you to that point, try to remember that He is doing that out of kindness to you. If you were not pushed to the point of not being able to handle something, then you would have no need to know what humility really is and know what it means to live by grace. In His great mercy He teaches us and trains us by bringing things to us that are far too hard for us to handle in our pseudo-humility and spirituality lite. We may be able to recall and quote verses like “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13), but until that is what He has taught us in our hearts we have no real idea of what it means. Humility is not something learned about; it is something that is learned in the heat of trials brought from the Divine hand to give us what is truly best.

Still another reason why it is hard to write on humility is because of its link with so many other issues of the heart. It is not necessary to delineate all of these and make many distinctions at this point, but humility is inseparable from many other things of the heart. We cannot speak of true mortification of sin, dying to self, contrition for sin, humiliation of the soul, and things like that without going through humility. Yet when those things are brought into the picture, the soul begins to have great fear and wants to flee. As the body flees from things that will harm or kill it, so pride should be viewed as having a life of its own and it does not want to die. This pride will plead with you to spare it and it will hide behind many rational arguments. This pride wants to be spared and like a chameleon it will take on the colors and dress of many things. While the Beatitudes speak of the merciful being blessed because they will be shown mercy, yet in this case you must show your pride no mercy at all.

Jesus’ command reaches the soul when He tells us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and then to follow Him. This is repeated several times in Scripture. But why does He tell us to deny ourselves before He tells us to take up our cross and follow Him? It is because the flesh and the pride do not want to do anything that will harm the flesh or the pride. The issue of following Christ is first and foremost a battle with self. Self does not want to pick up that cross and self does not want to suffer. Self does not want to be mocked and made fun of. Our pride is so great we want to do anything but suffer in our soul. However, there will be many who will say “Lord, Lord” and yet will be told to depart from Him because we practice lawlessness (Mat 7). If we do not deny self, we will have chosen self over Him and so will be in disobedience to His command. The issue of humility, then, is not just a matter of adding a little virtue, but also a matter of salvation and of walking by grace. If we try to deny self by the strength of self, we will also live by self since self will not have been denied. We must die to self or we will never die to pride. When we cast out self by self we will pick up a cross of our own choosing rather than the cross Jesus commands us to take. We must die to self and be emptied of our pride so that we will take up the cross of His choosing and live by the grace He chooses. Humility is not an easy issue at all, but it is a battle to the death of self. This requires humility because this death to self can only be accomplished in us by God. This may sound like a great mystery, and perhaps it is, but this is one of those things that you have to do to learn it.