“Humility” by Andrew Murray (Student notes)

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Rod Culbertson

Andrew Murray: Educated in Scotland, he was a staunch advocate of biblical Christianity.

Chapter 1

The truly humble person walks with absolute confidence, knowing that we are simply empty vessels through whom God wants to accomplish his work.

The mystery of Grace teaches us that as we lose ourselves in the overwhelming greatness of redeeming love, humility becomes to us the consummation of everlasting blessedness.

Be nothing in order that God may be everything. It is not sin that humbles but grace.

Humility is to be our joy. Christ took the lowest place. Jesus found glory in taking the form of a servant. He was teaching us the truth that there is nothing so divine as being the servant and helper of all.

Humility-the distinguishing feature of discipleship. The cardinal virtue, the root from which grace can grow and the one indispensable condition of true fellowship with Jesus.

Chapter 1

We owe everything to God. We must present ourselves as empty vessels in which God can dwell and manifest His power and goodness. Humility is the first duty, and the highest virtue of His creatures. Satan breathed the poison of his pride-the desire to be God- into the hearts of our first parents. Pride is the gateway to hell. Jesus came to bring humility back to earth. His humility gave His death its value and so became our redemption. His own disposition and spirit, his own humility, as the ground and root of His relationship with God and his redeeming work. His humility became our salvation. His salvation is our humility.  Marked by an all-pervading humility. Humility is the only soil in which virtue takes root, a lack of humility is the explanation of every defect and failure. Humility allows Him as God to do all. Humility acknowledges the truth of God’s position. It will not come easily you must make it the object of special desire, prayer, faith and practice. WE MUST STUDY THE CHARACTER OF JESUS UNTIL OUR SOULS ARE FILLED WITH THE LOVE AND ADMIRATION OF HIS LOWLINESS.

Chapter 2 

Live by the life that was in the seed that gave it being. Satan destroyed forever that blessed humility and dependence upon God that would have been our everlasting inheritance and happiness.

Pride makes redemption necessary. It has its origin in what this cursed pride, ours or others, had brought upon us.  IT IS FROM OUR PRIDE THAT WE NEED ABOVE ALL ELSE TO BE REDEEMED.

Our insight into the need of redemption will largely depend upon our knowledge of the terrible nature of the power of pride that has entered our being. The pride Satan brought from hell is whispered daily, hourly, and with mighty power through out the world.

Pride has its root and strength in spiritual power, outside of us and inside of us, it is Satanic in origin.  Look at Adam and know the power of his sin within us and look to Jesus to know the life of humility as real and abiding and enabling as was the life of pride.

It is the utmost importance that we study to know and trust the life that has been revealed in Christ as the life that is now ours, and waits for our consent to gain possession and mastery of our whole being. The root of Christ’s character is his humility.

Put his grace first and make humility the chief quality we admire in Christ, the chief thing we ask for, the thing we sacrifice all else for.

Seek humility, not joy, in Christ; then have them all. Jesus forgave me my pride.

Study the humility of Jesus. This is the secret. The hidden root of redemption. Believe with all your heart that Christ, whom God gave you, will enter in to dwell and work within you and make you what the Father would have you be. MAKE ME WHO I WAS MEANT TO BE LORD.

Chapter 3

Humility – Simple content of the creature to let God be all, the surrender of itself to His working alone. The Son can do nothing by himself. John 5:19

He was nothing that God might be all. I have given myself to the Father to work, He is all. Christ found to be the source of perfect peace and joy to be 100% dependent on his father. We are all made to be partakers of Christ. We must learn how he is meek and lowly in heart. Bow in deepest humility to wait upon God for it.

He never for a moment sought his own honor or asserted his power to vindicate himself.

And as the virtues Jesus gives us if we are to have any part of Him, we begin to comprehend how serious it is to lack humility in our lives.

Chapter 4

Jesus expects his disciples to be as humble as he was.

He tells us both what the Spirit is and what we can learn and receive from Him.

The glory of heaven, the mind of heaven is humility. Humility, as it is the mark of Christ, will be the one standard of glory in heaven, the lowliest is the nearest to God. Humiliation is the only ladder of honor in God’s kingdom.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. The demand is inexorable, there is no other way. Self-abasement alone will be exalted. Jesus makes humility the first and most essential element of discipleship. How little this is preached. How seldom it is practiced. How faintly the lack of it is felt or confessed. But fewer ever think of making it a distinct object of continual desire or prayer. The world needs to see our humility. Oh that God would convince us that Jesus means this! Jesus calls us to be servants of one another. Humility and meekness is the nobility in the kingdom of heaven. MY ONE NEED IS HUMILITY.

Chapter 5 

God created the world out of nothing…as long as we are nothing he can make something out of us. The triumph of Christ’s humility over the pride Satan breathed into humanity. Christendom has a lot of great attributes in scholarship, teaching, preaching etc… but humility isn’t one of them. Humility is a virtue when and only when the fullness of Spirit makes us partakers of the indwelling of Christ as He lives within us. Learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart. Humility is the only path to the glory of God. Jesus has the power to take over our own nature with his. Only with Christ indwelling in us can we become truly humble. In his death, he destroyed the power of the devil. He put away the sin and produced an everlasting redemption. In his resurrection He received from the Father an entirely new life, the life of man in the power of God.

Chapter 6

Humility cannot be just a pastime. Humility must abide in us and become our very nature. It must be fleshed out in our ordinary conduct. Be completely humble and gentle, be patient bearing with one another. The humble person feels no jealousy or envy. Visible virtues are great and all… but the inward ones are what God is after. Spiritual poverty, meekness, humility lowliness.  Let us study the bible portrait of the most humble man that ever lived…the LORD JESUS. Humility always seeks, like Jesus, to be the servant, the helper, and the comforter to others, even to the lowest and most unworthy. May we have true faith in the sufficiency of God and admit to the inefficiency of self, that by God’s  power we will serve one another in love.

Chapter 7                                                                       

Be humble when praised…now that is a task. Thanks Bernard. Holiness increases humility. Divine humility was the secret of His life, his death and his exaltation. The one infallible test of our holiness will be our humility before God and others. Christians often don’t exhibit meekness or gentleness when speaking to one another. The virtues of Jesus are thrown out the window. They do not reckon others better than themselves, and their holiness has little meekness in it.  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. Flee to Jesus and hide yourselves in Him until you are clothed with His humility. That alone is holiness.

Chapter 8                                                                           

Nothing sets a person so much out of the devil’s reach as humility- Jonathan Edwards.

Christ came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst- Paul via 1 Timothy 1:15

But by the grace of God I am what I am and that grace was not without effect. God’s grace helped Paul not to focus on sin but to rejoice in his salvation. Grace filled him with unspeakable joy, the clearer his conscience that he was a saved sinner. God’s power keeps us in awe of Jesus’ humility. He was born a creature. Absence of the confession of sin only gives more strength to the truth that it is not daily sinning that the secret of humility is found but rather in the position of dependence upon the grace of God. The very essence of grace deals with and takes away sin. It is not sin, but God’s grace showing a man and ever reminding him what a sinner he was that will keep him truly humble. NOT SIN BUT GRACE. The law may break the heart with fear; it is only grace that works that sweet humility, that becomes joy to the soul as its second nature.

Chapter 9 

All that hinders the blessing being ours is pride or a lack of faith. It is possible to have strong intellectual conviction and assurance of truth with pride still in the heart, but it makes living faith, through the power of God, impossible. Humility prepares the soul for living in trust. Pride refuses to allow God to be Who He is. Is it any wonder that our faith is weak when pride still reigns and we hardly long for humility as the most necessary and most blessed part of salvation. Humility brings the soul to nothing before God and removes every hinderance of faith and it makes it only fear lest it dishonor Him by not trusting Him completely.  If there is failure in the pursuit of holiness, it most surely has pride and self at its root. Humble yourself before the Lord and he will exalt you. Let humility be our desire in fervent prayer.

Chapter 10 

He won the power to do this through death, in its inmost nature, the life that he imparted was a life out of death, a life that had been surrendered to death and had been won through death. Only Jesus’ humility leads to perfect death. Only death perfects humility. Take the place of perfect nothingness before God. Death to self is not the work of man but the work of God. The lamb of God means two things: meekness and death.

Chapter 11 

Paul’s trial he called a blessing. The place of humiliation is the place of blessing, of power and of joy. We have not yet embraced humility as learned believers. If the Lord himself doesn’t step into our pursuits there may be unconscious self-exaltation. Let’s trust who took care of Paul to take care of us. The danger of pride is greater and nearer than we think especially at the time of our greatest experiences. The grace for humility is also greater and nearer than we think. Jesus’ humility saves us.

Chapter 12 

The more we stoop the more we get.

How can I overcome my pride? Help me Lord to humble myself and trust in you in that state. God will lift us up to Jesus. He removes our pride and nature. He that humbles himself shall be exalted. It is only in possession of God that I lose myself. Humble thyself and be exalted.

Posted in Personal Devotion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Religious Life of Theological Students, by Princeton Professor Dr. B. B. Warfield

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Rod Culbertson

A minister must be learned, on pain of being utterly incompetent for his work. But before and above being learned, a minister must be godly.

`Vocation’—it is the call of God, addressed to every man, whoever he may be, to lay upon him a particular work, no matter what. And the calls, and therefore also the called, stand on a complete equality with one another.

It cannot be: you cannot build up a religious life except you begin by performing faithfully your simple, daily duties.

“Devotion” to be taken in both its senses—in the sense of “zealous application,” and in the sense of “a religious exercise,” theology has as its unique end to make God known: the student of theology is brought by his daily task into the presence of God, and is kept there.

Put your heart into your studies; do not merely occupy your mind with them, but put your heart into them. They bring you daily and hourly into the very presence of God; his ways, his dealing with men, the infinite majesty of his Being form their very subject-matter. Put the shoes from off your feet in this holy presence!

Do you know what this danger is? Or, rather, let us turn the question—are you alive to what your privileges are? Are you making full use of them? Are you, by this constant contact with divine things, growing in holiness, becoming every day more and more men of God?

And when he adds, “As the custom of some is,” he means to put a lash into his command. We can see his lip curl as he says it. Who are these people, who are so vastly strong, so supremely holy, that they do not need the assistance of the common worship for themselves; and who, being so strong and holy, will not give their assistance to the common worship?

In my own mind, I am quite clear that in an institution like this the whole body of students should come together, both morning and evening, every day, for common prayer; and should join twice on every Sabbath in formal worship.

That if you do not find Christ in the conference room it is because you do not take him there with you….

Their function was to teach the saving truth of God, and, if they did that, it was frivolous for people in danger of perishing for want of the truth to object to the vessel in which it was offered to them.

Have we not the example of our Lord Jesus Christ? Are we better than he? Surely, if ever there was one who might justly plead that the common worship of the community had nothing to offer him it was the Lord Jesus Christ. But every Sabbath found him seated in his place among the worshipping people, and there was no act of stated worship which he felt himself entitled to discard. Even in his most exalted moods, and after his most elevating experiences, he quietly took his place with the rest of God’s people, sharing with them in the common worship of the community. Jesus Christ made it his habitual practice to be found in his place on the Sabbath day at the stated place of worship to which he belonged.

Every soul seeking God honestly and earnestly finds him, and, in finding him, finds the way to him. One hint I may give you, particularly adapted to you as students for the ministry: Keep always before your mind the greatness of your calling, that is to say, these two things: the immensity of the task before you, the infinitude of the resources at your disposal. I think it has not been idly said, that if we face the tremendous difficulty of the work before us, it will certainly throw us back upon our knees; and if we worthily gauge the power of the gospel committed to us, that will certainly keep us on our knees.

Sir Oliver Lodge informs us that “men of culture are not bothering,” nowadays, “about their sin, much less about their punishment,” and Dr. Johnston Ross preaches us a much needed homily from that text on the “lightheartedness of the modern religious quest.” Helen Jackson pictures far too common an experience when she paints the despair of one whose sowing, though not unfruitful for others, bears no harvest in his own soul.

O teacher, then I said, thy years, Are they not joy? each word that issueth From out thy lips, doth it return to bless Thine own heart manyfold? Listen to the response: I starve with hunger treading out their corn, I die of travail while their souls are born. She does not mean it in quite the evil part in which I am reading it. But what does Paul mean when he utters that terrible warning: “Lest when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway?” And there is an even more dreadful contingency. It is our Savior himself who tells us that it is possible to compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when we have made him to make him twofold more a child of hell than we are ourselves.

There is no mistake more terrible than to suppose that activity in Christian work can take the place of depth of Christian affections.

Do you pray? How much do you pray? How much do you love to pray? What place in your life does the “still hour,” alone with God, take?

I am sure that if you once get a true glimpse of what the ministry of the cross is, for which you are preparing, and of what you, as men preparing for this ministry, should be, you will pray, Lord, who is sufficient for these things, your heart will cry; and your whole soul will be wrung with the petition: Lord, make me sufficient for these things.

Give your days and nights to living up to it! And then, perhaps, when you come to sound the trumpets the note will be pure and clear and strong, and perchance may pierce even to the grave and wake the dead.

Posted in Quotes Worth Noting | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

St Augustine, Confessions (Book Eight)

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Rod Culbertson

Help me with gratitude to remember and confess to you your mercies you have given me.

Fill my bones with your love. The way = the Savior himself. There are men who knew God, glorified him, but didn’t thank him. I have fallen into this. You have held me up oh Lord until I have recovered.  I found the pearl of great price but I hesitated. You can do all things Lord, how did you convey yourself into my bosom? God passed through man to make him rejoice more at salvation of a soul and delivered him from danger. There is no pleasure of human eat or drink without the pain of thirst and hunger. The greater joy is everywhere preceded by the greater pain. How are you the deepest and the highest? We should believe that all are equal, rich to poor, ignoble to noble, the richest things of the world to confound the things which are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which are despised. My will was the enemy master of, and then had made for me and bound me. Because of a perverse will was lust made, and lust indulged in and became custom and custom not resisted became necessity. A hard bondage held me enthralled. The two wills battled within in me and by their discord they unstrung my soul. I had no other option than to give myself up to your love, and yield myself to your will. Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. The law of sin is the violence of custom, whereby the mind is drawn and held, even against its will, deserving to be held in that it so willingly falls into it. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death, but thy grace only, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Posted in Quotes Worth Noting | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Assurance and Humility, A.A. Hodge

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Rod Culbertson

The first essential mark of the difference between true and false assurance is to be found in the fact that true assurance works humility. If there is utter humility, you have the sign of the true spirit. A great deal of perfectionism is rotten to the core. All self-consciousness is of the very essence and nature of sin. Then, again, true confidence leads necessarily to strong desires for more knowledge and more holiness, for unceasing advances of grace. But a man who really has the love of God in his heart is always reaching forward to the things which are before. The more he loves, the more he wants to love, the more he is consecrated, the more consecration he longs for. He has grand ideas and grand aims, but they lie beyond him in heaven.

Posted in Quotes Worth Noting | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Godly Man’s Picture, Thomas Watson

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Rod Culbertson

A Godly Man is a Lover of the Word

He loves the counseling part of the word. He loves the threatening part of the word. He loves the menaces of the word. He loves the consolatory part of the word. He loves the promises. He shows his love for the word by diligently reading it. He shows his love by frequently meditating on it. By delighting in it during recreation! By hiding it, in his heart, memorizing it. By defending it, by preferring it about all things precious, like food and worldly honor. By talking about it, by conforming to it. He should love it because it is excellent. It is written on pillars of fire to guide us. It is a spiritual mirror by which we see our own hearts. It is a sovereign comfort in times of distress. When we desire to sit under a heart-searching ministry. Who cares for medicines that will not work? A godly man does not choose to sit under a ministry that will not work upon his conscience. When we pray we pray that the Word may meet with our sins. If there is any traitorous lust in our heart, we would have it found out and executed. We do not want sin covered, but cured. We can open our breast to the bullet of the Word and say, “Lord, smite this sin.” Be shot by God’s Word exposing sin so it can be removed.

Posted in Quotes Worth Noting | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment