Virginia Brandt Berg (1898-1968)
Meditation Moments 47:
WE WANT TO TALK TO YOU ON A WONDERFUL SCRIPTURE ABOUT HUMILITY. There is a little song called "Keep Your Eyes on Jesus," and that's the only way in the World that you'll ever keep from the terrible sin of pride, and to keep in a humble spirit.
THERE IS NO GRACE MORE NEEDED IN HUMAN BEINGS THAN PERFECT HUMILITY! We're the weakest and poorest and blindest of any order of intelligence, and our bodies are made out of dust, our breath is in our nostrils, and our spiritual and mental nature is depraved!
WE'VE GOT THE WEAKNESSES OF THE EARTH AND THE INFIRMITIES OF ANIMALS, and I almost said, the depravity of demons! And we come into the World so very helpless! If there's a race that ought to be humble and not have any pride or vanity, surely it is us!
IN ORDER TO SEE OUR NEED FOR HUMILITY WE HAVE TO LOOK AT OUR OWN NOTHINGNESS, and just think of how all creatures, it seems to me at least, excel us. There's hardly any animal or bird or insect that cannot in some particular way excel me, either in speed or beauty or song or hardiness or docility! Some trait that makes me as a creature feel my inferiority!
WHEN I LOOK ABOUT ME AT OTHERS, AND HOW MANY TIMES I'VE WOUNDED FRIENDS and grieved loved ones, and made so many mistakes, I wonder that I could have any pride whatsoever!
IN THE MIDST OF SOME OF THESE FACTS, TO HAVE ONE ATOM OF PRIDE OR SELF-ESTEEM or resentment or cruelness or hard-feelings towards any of our fellow beings, seems to me to be just the grossest of sins! -- And I know that some of you feel the same!
AND WHEN I THINK OF THE GRIEF THAT WE CAUSE OUR LORD, our precious Heavenly Father and the blessed Holy Spirit, it surely behooves us to sink down into real nothingness.
ALL PRIDE OF ANY FORM COMES FROM THE DEVIL, it comes right out of the pit of Hell, and could we always just remember that, perhaps it would add to our humility that we're talking about.
WE WOULD NEVER SAY THAT WE HAVE BEEN INJURED OR WRONGED BY ANYONE; we would never be unkind or severe or impatient with the faults of others if we could see ourselves as God sees us: take a good look at ourselves and see us as we really are!
IF WE SINK CONSTANTLY INTO OUR OWN NOTHINGNESS, THEN GOD CAN BEGIN TO USE US. God's Word has so many Scriptures on this: "You're dead and your life is hid with Christ in God." -- But we're not hid as much as we should be!
PRIDE MAKES US WANT TO BE SEEN AND WANT TO SHOW! But humility is such a sensitive plant that it has to be hidden: You breathe on it and it disappears, you drag it in the open or you boast of it at all, and it's gone.
IF YE THEN BE RISEN WITH CHRIST YOU'RE GOING TO BE ONE WHO HAS RISEN WITH REAL HUMILITY, because He was so very, very humble! I want to read a few Scriptures along this line. There are so many that as I went over them it seemed they were endless! Now God's Word says in Phil.2:5-9:
"HAVE THIS MIND IN YOU, WHICH WAS ALSO IN CHRIST JESUS, WHO EMPTIED HIMSELF, taking the form of a servant, and humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death. Whereunto God highly exalted Him."
OUR BROKEN HEARTS AND EMBITTERED LIVES OF WAR AND BLOODSHED AND JEALOUSIES, ALL COME FROM DEVILISH PRIDE! And I feel that if we see ourselves as possessed of all these, these jealousies and selfishness, it would make us ready to accept a higher Power, and look to the Lord, to turn our eyes upon Jesus and find the life that's revealed in Christ Jesus, and empty ourselves as He emptied Himself!
WHAT IS ATONEMENT BUT HUMILITY? HUMILITY IS THE VERY ROOT OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE: counting ourselves as nothing, that God may be all and in all. And any hasty judgments, or a lack of love, or indifference to the needs of others, or a sharp word, come most often, I think, from lack of humility.
THAT WAS ONE OF THE GREATEST CHARACTERISTICS OF JOHN, the forerunner of Jesus Christ. They asked him, Art thou Elias? And he said, No, I'm only a voice! He might have boasted that he'd baptized many people and he was son of the great priest Zacharias, but he said, "There comes one after me, mightier than I, the latchets of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. (Jn.1:27)
"HE MUST INCREASE AND I JUST DECREASE." -- AND THAT'S THE WAY IT MUST BE WITH US! We must decrease and Christ must increase, or we'll never be highly exalted! He that humbleth himself shall be exalted, but he that exalteth himself, God's Word teaches that he will be brought low.
I WONDER IF WE'VE BEEN DECREASING OF LATE? OR HAVE WE BEEN TRYING TO GET SOME HIGH PLACE in life or some great position? Not long ago a man rebuked a friend of mine who was traveling abroad: He said, "Please call me by my title!" And three times in one evening he rebuked him because he didn't call him by his title!
GOD'S WORD DAYS SO DEFINITELY THAT "HE THAT IS GREATEST AMONG YOU, LET HIM BE AS THE LEAST, and he that is chief as he that doth serve, for I am among you as he that serveth." Remember, that as water seeks the lowliest place, just so, the glory and power of God flows in the humblest, lowliest hearts. This is real nobility in God's Kingdom!
OH, THAT WE MIGHT HAVE THE DETERMINATION TO HAVE THIS SWEET HUMILITY! IT IS A SENSE OF ENTIRE NOTHINGNESS which comes when we see how truly God is all in all, and which makes way in our lives for God to be all and in all. God bless you, and remember He's still on the Throne and prayer will change things for you, especially if you humble yourself in His hands