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CHAPTER
4
None
But the Humble Heart The
sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a
broken and a contrite heart; These,
O God, You will not despise. Psalm
51:17 But
on this one will I look: on him who
is poor and of a contrite spirit, and
trembles at My word. Isaiah
66:2
What is a sure essential to a Christianity that really works?
How do we get close to the heart of God? What is the one thing without
which there is no real personal revival?
Let
God Himself answer in these words: For
thus says the High and Lofty One Who
inhabits eternity, whose
name is Holy; I
dwell in the high and holy place, with
him who has a
contrite and humble spirit, to
revive the spirit of the humble, and
to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Isaiah
57:15 The
Lord is near those who
have a broken heart; and
saves such as have a contrite spirit. Psalm
34:18 This
book is intended to be a manual for living in continuous revival. What
is revival?
Spiritual revival is not confession of sin, as much as that may
be in evidence. Spiritual revival is not even inner conviction of sin or
external evidence of grief for sin, as potent a reality as these may be.
Spiritual revival is not even changed lives or changed communities.
The sine quo non of
revival, that without which it does not exist, is a humbling of the
human heart and spirit before almighty God. If you won’t let God
humble you, no vital, close dynamic relationship
with God is available to you! You can spend as many hours in prayer as
you might or run yourself ragged serving others, but without a contrite
heart, no Christianity will really work for you. What
Is Revival Humility?
First, be assured revival humility is not something exclusively
reserved for times of mass revival. Far from it, my dear Christian
friend. Like every one of God’s gifts of grace, you have a right to
begin enjoying it right now and every moment of your Christian life.
Humility is not the end of all enjoyment, not a long face and a
sad heart, and definitely not thinking self-depreciating thoughts.
Rather, humility is simply agreeing with God about us.
How does God see His human creatures? He knows we need Him as our
creator and as our sustainer. All
things were created through Him and for Him; and He is before all
things, and in Him all things consist [hold together], Colossians
1:16-17 informs us. We can’t take one breath to sustain the
next instant’s life without His divine permission and enabling.
God sees Himself not only as our source and sustainer, but also
as our reason for being. Colossians 1:16 says not only that all things
were created by Him, but they were also created for Him: for His use,
for His praise, and in our case, for His companionship.
Now, let’s ask that question again: how does God view His human
creation? Accurately. Precisely as we really are. Certainly not with the
self-deluding, prideful view we have.
He sees us created in His own image to bring Himself praise,
honor, and glory. He sees us with this glorious image terribly marred by
sin. He sees this sin as the stuff of which destruction and death are
made, as the awful plague and abomination it is. Moreover, He sees sin
actually put to death and destroyed at the cross positionally. As we
walk in Him, denying ourselves and rejecting our self-dependence, it’s
put to death in practice, too.
He sees the potential for the restoration of His own image in
mankind by His indwelling presence. He sees the potential for eternal
good produced by Him and His mighty life in us to His eternal praise,
honor, and glory. He sees the possibility of growing fellowship between
Himself and this once-corrupted human creation. He sees it all being
accomplished by His own initiative and His own dynamic His life lived in
ours and none of it as the result of independent human effort. Rather,
He knows that is prideful and counter-productive. To
See As He Does
What is it that stops us from seeing ourselves and God as He
does? Pride! Pride becomes the unforgivable sin if allowed to continue.
Nothing good is in that prideful independence from God that keeps us
isolated, separated, and
desolated apart from Him.
Pride consistently chooses its own perverse and destructive way
in preference to the good and perfect way of God. No words can fully
describe its ignorance, blindness, stupidity, and folly; nor yet the
eternal death, damnation, and destruction that are both the stuff of
which it is made and its natural end result. How we need to be humbly thanking God for His undeserved mercy and grace. Our pride would lift us up, instead, to steal from that eternally glorious, gracious God something of His honor and appropriate it to ourselves in all our impurity, imperfection, and degradation. Let us praise Him always for the amazing availability of His forgiveness even of such unfathomable insolence! Living
in Delusion
All our lives we’ve been living in awful delusion. As a result,
we’ve been terribly cheated. Pridefully looking to and depending on
our helpless selves rather than our completely capable God, we’ve been
constantly short-changed. Our rebellion has isolated us from
righteousness, peace, joy, and our one true Love. It has robbed us of
the gentleness and goodness that alone can make life a pleasure.
But we have no ability to do anything about it. Real revival
humility is the simple recognition of your inability and God’s
ability.
Now, if you think you can develop your humility by trying, go
ahead. When you are sick of having fallen for the same old lie again,
return to the Father, ask His forgiveness, and trust Him to give you His
humility. After all, you’ve been granted access to God and all He is
and has by the blood of Christ. Come to Him in no merit but His. Rest in
your established place of union with Him, knowing that He is working
humility in you for His glory.
Let me assure you that, as poorly as you may do this, God will be
pleased with even your most feeble response to His love. He’ll begin
to make real to you something of these heretofore misty realities.
He’ll begin to become more precious and all in opposition to Him
despicable. This will be the humbling of your heart and spirit in
revival humility. How
She Hurt
That dear lady phoned again, distraught. Appreciating me as she
did, she still couldn’t listen to my responses to her hurting heart.
She was angry! God had let her down. For a couple of months she’d been
ill. During that time the Lord had answered her prayer to bring her
temper under control. Now she was feeling better, but the anger had
returned. She’d feared this would happen, and it had.
I told her that, instead of being angry with the Lord, she needed
to be thankful that even for a while her prayer had been answered. She
had been free of her awful stifling, destructive anger. The Lord loved
her and understood both her desire to be rid of the anger and her moral
incapacity to rid herself of it.
God didn’t have it in for her. Neither had He abandoned her. He
was concerned for her. She didn’t have to earn His love by her good
works. He knew she was a sinner and only expected anything better of Him
in her, not of herself. She could trust Him to deliver her in His time
and way as he taught her to rest contently in her place at home in
Him.
I described what I’d do if given the right to choose for her.
One choice was to be rid of her sin of anger and, as a result, swell up
in pride and independence from God at her achievement. Already, she had
proved this was a real possibility by the return of her anger as soon as
she was no longer so dependent on the Lord. The other choice was to let
God show her need of Him by allowing her to succumb to her anger and so
humbling her and teaching her really to depend on Him. I’d choose the
latter.
God wasn’t being so hard on her after all. Perhaps He knew that
pride is a far more destructive sin than anger. It isolates us from God
more than does anything else, because by it we choose to be arrogantly
independent from Him.
Trust Him was my advice to her. Trust His life in you, His
ability in you, His timing. Don’t try to overcome in your own
strength, or you’ll be worse off living in supposed success and
paralyzing pride.
He always knows what’s best for us! He works best in us when we
trustfully leave Him undisturbed to do His work without our interference. You
Can Never Go Farther!
Be glad for His humbling work. Its benefits are without end. The
psalmist says: The
meek will he teach his way. Psalm
25:9 KJV
As you seek to walk with God in a Christianity that really
works, you’ll realize repeatedly your need of His teaching. You’ll
never get beyond it. Many times you’ll think He’s taking you back to
square one. In a sense, He will be. You can never get beyond the basic
spiritual and relational realities.
You’ll find that He can only teach those who are humble, meek,
teachable. You’ll discover that quite often what He is teaching you
again is humility or meekness of spirit.
A meek and quiet spirit is treasured by God because it is
incorruptible, eternal. In it there is nothing of corruption. Communing
with God is only possible in a meek and quiet spirit. You can never go
further, higher, or deeper with God than going lower and still lower in
quiet, humble meekness. |
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