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| A few books penned by Andrew Murray |
“Whosoever
would be greatest among you, shall be your servant” (Matthew 23:11)
Humility is nothing
but the disappearance of self in the vision that God is all. Humility
means the giving up of self and becoming perfect nothingness before God.
Gleanings
from Humility by Andrew Murray
“Whosoever
would be greatest among you, shall be your servant” (Matthew 23:11). Jesus
simply taught us the blessed truth that there is nothing so divine and heavenly
as being the servant and helper of all. The faithful servant who recognized his
position finds a real pleasure in supplying the wants of the master or his
guests. When we see that humility is something infinitely deeper than
contrition, and accept it as our participation in the life of Jesus, we will
begin to learn that it is our true nobility. We will begin to understand that
being servants of all is the highest fulfillment of our destiny, as men created
in the image of God. (pg. 7)
Our purpose
for being…”…Thou has created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were
created” (Revelation 4:11) (pg 9)
Humility,
the place of entire dependence on God, is, from the very nature of things, the
first duty and the highest virtue of man. It is the root of every virtue.
And so
pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil. (pg 10) …evil can have no beginning
but from pride, and no end but from humility. (pg 97)
Humility is
the only soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient
explanation of every defect and failure. Humility is not so much a grace or
virtue along with others, it is the root of all, because it alone assumes the
right attitude before God and allows Him as God to do all…. It is simply the
sense of entire nothingness, which comes when we see how truly God is all, and
in which we make way for God to be all. (pg 12)
…the first
and chief mark of the relationship of man with God, the secret of his
blessedness, is the humility and nothingness which leaves God free to be all. (pg 13)
It is from
our pride we need, above everything, to be redeemed. (pg 16)
Even as we
need to look to the first Adam and his fall to know the power of the sin within
us, we need to know well the Second Adam and His power to give within us a life
of humility as real and abiding and overmastering as has been that of pride. We
have our life from and in Christ…(pg 17)
Christ
found this life of entire self-renunciation, of absolute submission and
dependence upon the Father’s will, to be one of perfect peace and joy. He lost
nothing by giving everything to God…And because Christ had thus humbled Himself
before God, and God was ever before Him, He found it possible to humble himself
before men, too. He was able to be the Servant of all. His humility was simply
the surrender of Himself to God, to allow the Father to do in Him what He
pleased, no matter what men around might say of Him, or do to Him. (pg 23)
He teaches
us where true humility takes its rise and finds its strength-in the knowledge
that it is God who works all in all, that our place is to yield to Him in
perfect resignation and dependence, in full consent to be and to do nothing of
ourselves. This is the life Christ came to reveal and to imparta life in God
that comes through death to sin and self. (pg 24)
“Whosoever
will be chief among you, let him be your servant.” God wants us to believe that
Jesus means this! We all know what the character of a faithful servant or slave
implies. Devotion to the master’s interests, thoughtful study and care to
please him, delight in his prosperity and honor and happiness. There are
servants on earth in whom these dispositions have been seen, and to whom the
name of servant has never been anything but a glory.
To many of
us it has been a new joy in the Christian life to know that we may yield
ourselves as servants, as slaves to God, and to find that His service is our
highest liberty, the liberty from sin and self. (pg 31)
“He that
loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not
seen?” (1 John 4:20)
The only
humility that is really ours is not that which we try to show before God in
prayer, but that which we carry with us, and carry out, in our ordinary
conduct. The insignificances of daily life are the importances and the tests of
eternity because they prove what spirit really possesses us. (pg 44)
The humble
man seeks at all times to act on the rule, “In honor preferring one another;
Serve one another; Each esteeming others better than himself; Submitting
yourselves one to another.”(pg 46)
Amid what
are considered the temptations to impatience and touchiness, to hard thoughts
and sharp words-which come from the failings and sins of fellow-Christians-the
humble man carries the often repeated injunction in his heart, and shows it in
his life: “Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, even as Christ
forgave you” (Colossians 3:13). He has learned that in putting on the Lord
Jesus he has put on the heart of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness,
and long-suffering (Colossians 3:12). Jesus has taken the place of self,
and it is not an Impossibility to forgive as Jesus forgave. (pg 47)
May God
teach us that our thoughts and words and feelings concerning our fellow-men are
His test of our humility toward Him. May He teach us that our humility before
Him is the only power that can enable us to be always humble with our
fellow-men. Our humility must be the life of Christ, the Lamb of God, within
us. (pg 56)
It is not
sin, but God’s grace showing a man and constantly reminding him what a sinner
he was, that will keep him truly humble. (pg 64)
Being
occupied with self, even amid the deepest self-abhorrence, can never free us
from self. It is the revelation of God, not only by the law condemning sin, but
by His grace delivering from it, that will make us humble. (pg 65)
Humility is
simply the disposition which prepares the soul for living on trust. And every,
even the most secret breathing of pride-in self-seeking, self-will,
self-confidence, or self-exaltation-is just the strengthening of that self which
cannot enter into the Kingdom or possess the things of the Kingdom, because it
refuses to allow God to be what He is and must be-the all in all. (pg 68)
“He humbled
Himself and became obedient unto death: (Philippians 2:8)
Humility is
the path to death, because in death it gives the highest proof of its
perfection. Humility is the blossom of which death to self is the perfect
fruit. Jesus humbled Himself unto death and opened the path in which we too
must walk. As there was no way for Him to prove His surrender to God to the
very uttermost, or to give up and rise out of His human nature to the glory of
the Father, but through death, so it is with us, too. Humility must lead us to
die to self. We must prove how wholly we have given ourselves up to it and to
God. Only thus are we freed from fallen nature and find the path that leads to
life in God, to that full birth of the new nature of which humility is the
breath and the joy. (pg 73)
The death
of Jesus, once and forever, is our death to self. And the ascension of Jesus,
His entering once and forever into the Holiest, has given us the Holy Spirit to
communicate to us in power, and make the power of the death-life our very own. (pg 77)
Accept with
gratitude everything that God allows from within or without, from friend or
enemy, in nature or in grace, to rind you of your need of humbling, and to help
you to it. (pg
90)
May God
teach us to believe that to be humble, to be nothing in His presence, is the
highest attainment and the fullest blessing of the Christian life. He speaks to
us: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and with him that is of a contrite and
humble spirit” (Isaiah 57:15) Be this our destiny!
