Obedience And Humility Quotes

The more humble and obedient to God a man is, the more wise and at peace he will be in all that he does.

The common man prays, 'I want a cookie right now!' And God responds, 'If you'd listen to what I say, tomorrow it will bring you 100 cookies.

Humility is the mother of all virtues; purity, charity and obedience. It is in being humble that our love becomes real, devoted and ardent. If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are. If you are blamed you will not be discouraged. If they call you a saint you will not put yourself on a pedestal.

The first degree of humility is prompt obedience.

Yesterday I was clever, so I took the glory for me. Today He makes me wise, so I give the glory to Thee

When everyone believes they are the life coaches, who are the players?

The unteachable man is sentenced to being taught only by experience. The tragedy is he reaches nothing further than his own pain.

Humility is a Divine property and the perfection of the Christian life. It is attained through obedience. He who is not obedient cannot gain humility. There are very few in the world today who have obedience. Our humility is in proportion to our obedience.

Ibn Ata' Allah said: "God may open up for you the gates of obedience, but without opening up for you the gates of acceptance. On the other hand, He may Allow you to fall into disobedience which happens to lead you to the right path. DISOBEDIENCE that teaches you HUMILITY is better than PIETY that fills you with VANITY and ARROGANCE.

I testify that the tender mercies of the Lord are real and that they do not occur randomly or merely by coincidence. Often, the Lord’s timing of his tender mercies helps us to both discern and acknowledge them….The Lord’s tender mercies are the very personal and individualized blessings, strength, protection, assurances, guidance, loving-kindnesses, consolation, support, and spiritual gifts which we receive from and because of and through the Lord Jesus Christ….Faithfulness, obedience and humility invite tender mercies into our lives, and it is often the Lord’s timing that enables us to recognize and treasure these important blessings….I testify that the tender mercies of the Lord are available to all of us and that the Redeemer of Israel is eager to bestow such gifts upon us….Each of us can have eyes to see clearly and ears to hear distinctly the tender mercies of the Lord as they strengthen and assist us in these latter days.

I, too, lived—which I had not done before, and which I could still do. I lived into the depths, and the depths began to speak. The depths taught me the other truth. It thus united sense and nonsense in me. I had to recognize that I am only the expression and symbol of the soul. In the sense of the spirit of the depths, I am as I am in this visible world a symbol of my soul, and I am thoroughly a serf, completely subjugated, utterly obedient. The spirit of the depths taught me to say: “I am the servant of a child.” Through this dictum I learn above all the most extreme humility, as what I most need.

. A gentle tug on the leash and I would adjust myself quickly. I never questioned it. I knew that she knew where we were going and I never once looked back. Sometimes God does that too. He reminds us not to get too headstrong so that we remain humble and attentive to Him. He knows where He is taking us.

In the course of my intellectual life I experienced very acutely the problem of whether it isn't actually presumptuous to say that we can know the truth - in the face of all our limitations. I also asked myself to what extent it might not be better to suppress this category. In pursuing this question, however, I was able to observe and also to grasp that relinquishing truth doesn't solve anything but, on the contrary, leads to the tyranny of caprice. In that case, the only thing that can remain is really what we decide on and can replace at will. Man is degraded if he can't know truth, if everything, in the final analysis, is just the product of an individual or collective decision. In this way it became clear to me how important it is that we don't lose the concept of truth, in spite of the menaces and perils that it doubtless carries with it. It has to remain as a central category. As a demand on us that doesn't give us rights but requires, on the contrary, our humility and our obedience and can lead us to the common path.

Then you do not belong here. Death holds no sweetness in this house. We are not warriors, nor soldiers, nor swaggering bravos puffed up with pride. We do not kill to serve some lord, to fatten our purses, to stroke our vanity. We never give the gift to please ourselves. Nor do we choose the ones we kill. We are but servants of the God of Many Faces." "Valar dohaeris." All men must serve. "You know the words, but you are too proud to serve. A servant must be humble and obedient." "I obey. I can be humbler than anyone." That made him chuckle. "You will be the very goddess of humility, I am sure. But can you pay the price?" "What price?" "The price is you. The price is all you have and all you ever hope to have. We took your eyes and gave them back. Next we will take your ears, and you will walk in silence. You will give us your legs and crawl. You will be no one's daughter, no one's wife, no one's mother. Your name will be a lie, and the very face you wear will not be your own.

Teaching by example, radical obedience, justice, mercy, activism, and sacrifice wholly inspires me. I'm at that place where "well done" trumps "well said." When I see kingdom work in the middle of brokenness, when mission transitions from the academic soil of the mind into the sacrificial work of someone's hands, I am utterly affected. Obedience inspires me. Servant leaders inspire me. Humility inspires me. Talking heads dissecting apologetics stopped inspiring me a few years ago.

True humility is absolute obedience and dependence on God. It puts Him first, others second, and ourselves third in all things.

We may be content to remain what we call 'ordinary people': but He is determined to carry out a quite different plan. To shrink back from that plan is not humility; it is laziness and cowardice. To submit to it is not conceit or megalomania; it is obedience.

What God in His sovereignty may yet do on a world-scale I do not claim to know. But what He will do for the plain man or woman who seeks His face I believe I do know and can tell others. Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days.

She was made after the time of ribs and mud. By papal decree there were to be no more people born of the ground or from the marrow of bones. All would be created from the propulsions and mounts performed underneath bedsheets- rare exception granted for immaculate conceptions. The mixing pits were sledged and the cutting tables, where ribs were extracted from pigs and goats, were sawed in half. Although the monks were devout and obedient to the thunder of Rome, the wool of their robes was soaked not only by the salt of sweat but also by that of tears. The monks rolled down their heavy sleeves, hid their slaughter knives in the burlap of their scrips, and wiped the hoes clean. They closed the factory down, chained the doors with Vatican-crested locks, and marched off in holy formation. Three lines, their faces staring down in humility, closing their eyes when walking over puddles, avoiding their unshaven reflections.

This was defeat. This was failure; a quiet, ashen world. True humility and obedience, where the knee is bowed to the inevitable, the ring is kissed without pride or restraint.

The beauty of the female is the root of joy to the female as well as to the male, and it is no accident that the goddess of Love is older and stronger than the god. To desire the desiring of her own beauty is the vanity of Lilith, but to desire the enjoying of her own beauty is the obedience of Eve, and to both it is in the lover that the beloved tastes her own delightfulness. As obedience is the stairway of pleasure, so humility is the—

Humility and obedience are two painfully misunderstood virtues that are really the arts of listening. Humility involves the refusal to coerce, the rejection of all attempts to control others.

Christianity had, in Nietzsche’s account, emerged from the minds of timid slaves in the Roman Empire who had lacked the stomach to climb to the tops of mountains, and so had built themselves a philosophy claiming that their bases were delightful. Christians had wished to enjoy the real ingredients of fulfilment (a position in the world, sex, intellectual mastery, creativity) but did not have the courage to endure the difficulties these goods demanded. They had therefore fashioned a hypocritical creed denouncing what they wanted but were too weak to fight for while praising what they did not want but happened to have. Powerlessness became ‘goodness’, baseness ‘humility’, submission to people one hated ‘obedience’ and, in Nietzsche’s phrase, ‘not-being-able-to-take-revenge’ turned into ‘forgiveness’. Every feeling of weakness was overlaid with a sanctifying name, and made to seem ‘a voluntary achievement, something wanted, chosen, a deed, an accomplishment’. Addicted to ‘the religion of comfortableness’, Christians, in their value system, had given precedence to what was easy, not what was desirable, and so had drained life of its potential.

Prayer for revival will prevail when it is accompanied by radical amendment of life; not before. All-night prayer meetings that are not preceded by practical repentance may actually be displeasing to God. "To obey is better than sacrifice." We must return to New Testament Christianity, not in creed only but in complete manner of life as well. Separation, obedience, humility, simplicity, gravity, self-control, modesty, cross-bearing: these all must again be made a living part of the total Christian concept and be carried out in everyday conduct. We

The world calls for and expects from us simplicity of life, the spirit of prayer, charity towards all, especially towards the lowly and the poor, obedience and humility... Without this mark of holiness, our word will have difficulty in touching the heart of modern man. It risks being vain and sterile.

Be poor, go down into the far end of society, take the last place among men, live with those who are despised, love other men and serve them instead of making them serve you. Do not fight them when they push you around, but pray for those that hurt you. Do not look for pleasure, but turn away from things that satisfy your senses and your mind and look for God in hunger and thirst and darkness, through deserts of the spirit in which it seems to be madness to travel. Take upon yourself the burden of Christ’s Cross, that is, Christ’s humility and poverty and obedience and renunciation, and you will find peace for your souls.

We may be content to remain what we call ‘ordinary people’: but He is determined to carry out a quite different plan. To shrink back from that plan is not humility: it is laziness and cowardice. To submit to it is not conceit or megalomania; it is obedience.

It’s true that God wants us to grow in our knowledge and obedience of him, but he never wants us to stop living with the humility, trust, and the absolute abandonment of a child.

I rather choose to go through what will make me humble than to go for what will increase my pride to a level without limit

It is only through faith that you will receive the patience, obedience, and humility to be submissive

Whatever we have in the glory of man is "away". Those are just not enough before we go "home" to the glory of God.

Winning or losing is not the right scorecard. Obedience is. When we do the right thing, we’re being faithful. Even if we get the wrong results.

Obedience and humility require courage and strength of character. Weakness and fear cause one to fall back on his or her pride, which results in a vicious cycle

Discipline brings freedom. The purpose of meditation is to enable us to hear God more clearly. Meditation is listening, sensing, heeding the life and light of Christ. This comes right to the heart of our faith. The life that pleases God is not a set of religious duties; it is to hear His voice and obey His word. Meditation opens the door to this way of living. To pray is to change. All who have walked with God have viewed prayer as the main business of their lives. For those explorers in the frontiers of faith, prayer was no little habit tacked on to the periphery of their lives; it was their lives. It was the most serious work of their most productive years. Prayer – nothing draws us closer to the heart of God. Fasting must forever centre on God. More than any other Discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us. The most difficult problem is not finding time but convincing myself that this is important enough to set aside the time. Disciplines are not the answer; they only lead us to the Answer. We must clearly understand this limitation of the Disciplines if we are to avoid bondage. Humility, as we all know, is one of those virtues that is never gained by seeking it. The more we pursue it the more distant it becomes. To think we have it is sure evidence that we don’t. Anybody who has once been horrified by the dreadfulness of his own sin that nailed Jesus to the Cross will no longer be horrified by even the rankest sins of a brother.’ If worship does not propel us into greater obedience, it has not been worship. To stand before the Holy One of eternity is to change.

The distance between truth and lies is integrity, between need and want is contentment, between fate and chance is will, between vice and virtue is intention, between faith and doubt is conviction, between joy and grief is happiness, between strength and weakness is tenacity, between action and fear is courage, between hope and despair is expectation, between wealth and poverty is diligence, between friendship and humility is kindness, between life and death is existence, between eternity and time is reality, between war and peace is diplomacy, between God and intelligence is wisdom, between knowledge and ignorance is education, between sin and righteousness is desire, between God and religion is faith, between blessings and curses is obedience, between faith and science is God, between good and evil is light, between light and darkness is sight, between God and Lucifer is love, and between Heaven and Hell is faith.

O Lord, send down Your grace to help me, that I may glorify Your name. Grant me humility, love, and obedience. Implant in me the root of all blessings: the reverence of You in my heart.

...to have a quiet and gentle spirit--a call given to women--would not mean I had to abandon all that I am, limp along in life, silence my personality in the name of obedience, but instead it meant that I could authentically be the woman God made me as, while anchored in the truth and controlled by the Spirit. When led by Him, when wanting to place my rights above His honor, humility would place its hand over my heart, keeping it still and settled with peace until what was worth being said or done happened in love. Out of a deep wanting for what belonged to God to be recognized and respected.

Nietzsche’s words that relate to this with respect to masks and the processes of life. He speaks of three stages in the life of the spirit incarnate in each of us. Three transformations of the spirit, he calls it. The first is that of the camel which gets down on its knees and asks, “Put a load on me.” That’s the period of these dear little children. This is the just-born life that has come in and is receiving the imprint of the society. The primary mask. “Put a load on me. Teach me what I must know to live in this society.” Once heavily loaded, the camel struggles to its feet and goes out into the desert — into the desert of the realization of its own individual nature. This must follow the reception of the culture good. It must not precede it. First is humility, and obedience, and the reception of the primary mask. Then comes the turning inward, which happens automatically in adolescence, to find your own inward life. Nietzsche calls this the transformation of the camel into a lion. Then the lion attacks a dragon; and the dragon’s name is Thou Shalt. The dragon is the concretization of all those imprints that the society has put upon you. The function of the lion is to kill the dragon Thou Shalt. On every scale is a “Thou Shalt,” some of them dating from 2000 b.c., others from this morning’s newspaper. And, when the dragon Thou Shalt has been killed — that is to say, when you have made the transition from simple obedience to authority over your own life — the third transformation is to that of being a child moving spontaneously out of the energy of its own center. Nietzsche calls it a wheel rolling out of its own center.

A man in chains need not be a slave. If he has pride and self-respect he is a free man though a prisoner, and a constant danger to his jailers. Conversely, a slave who escapes is not a free man, but a runaway slave who may be caught and returned to servitude. A slave is one who accepts the identity ascribed to him by a master: "You are an inferior and unworthy person and so will remain, and therefore must serve me with obedience and humility.

I felt in my bones; first, that this world does not explain itself. It may be a miracle with a supernatural explanation; it may be a conjuring trick, with a natural explanation. But the explanation of the conjuring trick, if it is to satisfy me, will have to be better than the natural explanations I have heard. The thing is magic, true or false. Second, I came to feel as if magic must have a meaning, and meaning must have some one to mean it. There was something personal in the world, as in a work of art; whatever it meant it meant violently. Third, I thought this purpose beautiful in its old design, in spite of its defects, such as dragons. Fourth, that the proper form of thanks to it is some form of humility and restraint: we should thank God for beer and Burgundy by not drinking too much of them. We owed, also, an obedience to whatever made us. And last, and strangest, there had come into my mind a vague and vast impression that in some way all good was a remnant to be stored and held sacred out of some primordial ruin. Man had saved his good as Crusoe saved his goods: he had saved them from a wreck...And all this time I had not even thought of Christian theology.

Beauty lies in the total abandonment of the observer and the observed and there can be self-abandonment only when there is total austerity – not the austerity of the priest with its harshness, its sanctions, rules and obedience – not austerity in clothes, ideas, food and behaviour – but the austerity of being totally simple which is complete humility. Then there is no achieving, no ladder to climb; there is only the first step and the first step is the everlasting step.

The Virgin Mary is called the [Greek words] (the "book of the Word of life") by the Greek Church. The book of the Gospel, the book of Christ's origins and life, can be written and proclaimed because God has first written his living Word in the living book of the Virgin's being, which she has offered to her Lord in all its purity and humility—the whiteness of a chaste, empty page. If the name of Mary does not often appear in the pages of the Gospel as evident participant in the action, it is because she is the human ground of humility and obedience upon which every letter of Christ's life is written. She is the Theotokos, too, in the sense that she is the book that bears, and is inscribed with, the Word of God. She keeps her silence that he might resonate the more plainly within her.

Jesus came to earth occupying two roles: (1) Lord and Christ, and (2) humble, obedient servant. He alone is Lord and Christ. But he taught and exemplified humble servanthood, the role we are to occupy—the way of the towel. The problem arises when his followers choose to follow him in his kingly role and not in his servant role. They gravitate toward the robe while resisting the towel. The Lord Jesus Christ alone wears the robe. His disciples are to follow him only in his humble, obedient servant role—maybe even his suffering-servant role.

We must return to New Testament Christianity, not in creed only but in complete manner of life as well. Separation, obedience, humility, simplicity, gravity, self-control, modesty, cross-bearing: these all must again be made a living part of the total Christian concept and be carried out in everyday conduct.

7. Character is built in the course of your inner confrontation. Character is a set of dispositions, desires, and habits that are slowly engraved during the struggle against your own weakness. You become more disciplined, considerate, and loving through a thousand small acts of self-control, sharing, service, friendship, and refined enjoyment. If you make disciplined, caring choices, you are slowly engraving certain tendencies into your mind. You are making it more likely that you will desire the right things and execute the right actions. If you make selfish, cruel, or disorganized choices, then you are slowly turning this core thing inside yourself into something that is degraded, inconstant, or fragmented. You can do harm to this core thing with nothing more than ignoble thoughts, even if you are not harming anyone else. You can elevate this core thing with an act of restraint nobody sees. If you don’t develop a coherent character in this way, life will fall to pieces sooner or later. You will become a slave to your passions. But if you do behave with habitual self-discipline, you will become constant and dependable. 8. The things that lead us astray are short term—lust, fear, vanity, gluttony. The things we call character endure over the long term—courage, honesty, humility. People with character are capable of a long obedience in the same direction, of staying attached to people and causes and callings consistently through thick and thin. People with character also have scope. They are not infinitely flexible, free-floating, and solitary. They are anchored by permanent attachments to important things. In the realm of the intellect, they have a set of permanent convictions about fundamental truths. In the realm of emotion, they are enmeshed in a web of unconditional loves. In the realm of action, they have a permanent commitment to tasks that cannot be completed in a single lifetime.

Powerlessness became 'goodness', baseness 'humility', submission to people one hated 'obedience' and, in Nietzsche's phrase, "not-being-able to-take-revenge' turned into 'forgiveness'. Every feeling of weakness was overlaid with a sanctifying name, and made to seem 'a voluntary achievement. something wanted. chosen. a deed, an accomplishment.

Without as much as a single question, legions of geese lift themselves to autumn’s skies, obediently heeding the distant call of southern horizons. And I think that it’s less the magnificence of their trek, and more about the humility of their obedience to the trek. For if I was left with a single prayer to utter, it would be to be more like them.

…the life which we, at any rate, can best lead to the glory of God at present is the learned life. By leading that life to the glory of God I do not, of course, mean any attempt to make our intellectual inquiries work out to edifying conclusions…I mean the pursuit of knowledge and beauty, in a sense, for their own sake, but in a sense which does not exclude their being for God’s sake. An appetite for these things exists in the human mind, and God makes no appetite in vain. We can therefore pursue knowledge as such, and beauty as such, in the sure confidence that by so doing we are either advancing to the vision of God ourselves or indirectly helping others to do so. Humility, no less than the appetite, encourages us to concentrate simply on the knowledge or the beauty, not too much concerning ourselves with their ultimate relevance to the vision of God. That relevance may not be intended for us but for our betters—for men who come after and find the spiritual significance of what we dug out in blind and humble obedience to our vocation.

Martin Buber as described for basic virtues cultivated by the Hasidim to overcome the separation of the sacred and secular. . . . St. Benedict spoke of them as truly seeking God, zeal for a humble way of life, zeal for obedience, and zeal for the opus of God. Buber catalogues them as kavana (single-mindedness), shiflut (humility), avada (service), and hitlahavut (fire of ecstasy). 129

The experts in our society who offer to help us have a kind of general-staff mentality from which massive, top-down solutions are issued to solve our problems. Then when the solutions don’t work, we get mired in the nothing-can-be-done swamp. We are first incited into being grandiose and then intimidated into being infantile. But there is another way, the plain way of quiet Christian humility.

Never pupil was more humble, never pupil more obedient; thinking nothing of himself or of anything he had done or could do, his path was open to the swiftest and highest growth. It matters little where a man may be at this moment; the point is whether he is growing. The next point will be, whether he is growing at the ratio given him. The key to the whole thing is _obedience_, and nothing else.

Marriage and prostitution were two sides of one shield, the predatory man's exploitation of the sex-pleasure. The difference between them was a difference of class. If a woman had money she might dictate her own terms: equality, a life contract, and the legitimacy--that is, the property-rights--of her children. If she had no money, she was a proletarian, and sold herself for an existence. And then the subject became Religion, which was the Archfiend's deadliest weapon. Government oppressed the body of the wage-slave, but Religion oppressed his mind, and poisoned the stream of progress at its source. The working-man was to fix his hopes upon a future life, while his pockets were picked in this one; he was brought up to frugality, humility, obedience--in short to all the pseudo-virtues of capitalism.

Long ago, returning from some turbulent sequence of misdeeds, the younger, beloved son of the house of Culter would rap at the door of his mother’s chamber, and be admitted, and closing the door, would bend upon her the grave, sweet gaze, made of mischief and love, that melted the bones in her body. Then, sinking to one knee, he would kiss her hand, in obedience and humility. Now he rapped, and she heard his voice speak her name and, rising, she faced him as the door opened and shut and he stood, his bearing and looks unlike anything she had ever seen in him before, in any extremity. He said, ‘I have to find Philippa.’ And then, walking into the room, he dropped on one knee and said, ‘I will promise anything you wish, to the end of my life, if you will tell me the name of the house that you know of.

He questioned his monastic vocation as much as he embraced it. He desired solitude as much as he craved attention and affection from his brothers. He sought intimacy with others as much as he treasured his chastity. He battled with his religious superiors as much as he hoped to follow his vow of obedience. Most of all, he wished for fame and influence as much as he saw that humility was the foundation for a healthy monastic life.

Twelve legions girded with angelic sword Were at his beck, the scorned and buffeted: He healed another's scratch; his own side bled, Side, feet, and hands, with cruel piercings gored. Oh wonderful the wonders left undone! And scarce less wonderful than those he wrought; Oh self-restraint, passing human thought, To have all power, and be as having none; Oh self-denying love, which felt alone For needs of others, never for its own.

He walked towards them with all the kindness and goodwill he was capable of, but all he felt in their presence was coldness and disgust, not a single glimmer of love, nothing of that divine feeling which even the most miserable of sinners awoke in him when begging for forgiveness. There was more humility in bragging atheists, in hardened blasphemers, than in the eyes and words of these children. Their superficial obedience was terrifying

Our trainers tell us to seek humility, to love our neighbor, to find the spirit of poverty, the virtue of obedience, and the virtue of purity. No one's daughter has found all of these virtues and keeps on finding them. They are taken from her, night after night. Perhaps this is why the new director guards her with jealous eyes when he tells her to speak her prayers aloud. As I stare, he removes her violet gown in the garden guarded by white flowers.

She describes the rhythm of the days. Eight hours of prayer: Matins in the deep night, Lauds at dawn, followed by Prime, Terce, Sext, chapter, None, Vespers, collation, Compline, bed. Work and silence and contemplation throughout. All they bend their bodies to is prayer; the daily office is prayer, the hard work of the body is prayer also. The silence of the nuns is prayer, the readings they listen to prayer, their humility prayer. And prayer of course is love. Obedience, duty, subservience; all is manifestation of love, directed at the great creator. The

And so Jesus came to bring humility back to earth, to make us partakers of it, and by it to save us. In heaven He humbled himself to become a man. The humility we see in Him possessed Him in heaven; it brought Him here. Here on earth “He humbled himself and became obedient to death”; His humility gave His death its value, and so became our redemption. And now the salvation He imparts is nothing less and nothing else than a communication of His own life and death, His own disposition and spirit, His own humility, as the ground and root of His relationship with God and His redeeming work.

it is important that we know who Christ is, especially the chief characteristic that is the root and essence of His character as our Redeemer. There can be but one answer: it is His humility. What is the Incarnation but His heavenly humility, His emptying himself and becoming man? What is His life on earth but humility; His taking the form of a servant? And what is His atonement but humility? “He humbled himself and became obedient to death.” And what is His ascension and His glory but humility exalted to the throne and crowned with glory? “He humbled himself... therefore God exalted Him to the highest place.

In the New Testament, God's steadfast love and faithfulness are seen, not in an act of deliverance from foreign enemies, but in sending the Son and raising Him from the dead to enact a global rescue mission (Romans 8:3.) Jesus is God's supreme, grand, climactic act of faithfulness. Not only that, but "faithful" also describes Jesus. Paul writes, "We know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but in faith in Jesus Christ" (Galations 2:16...). A better reading is "faithfulness of Jesus Christ" -- which is found in footnotes of many Bibles -- and the two readings couldn't be more different... Paul isn't saying, "You are not justified by your efforts but by your faith." The contrast he's making isn't between two options we have; the contrast is between your efforts and Jesus' faithfulness to you, shown in His obedient death on a Roman cross. Paul is interested in telling readers what Jesus did, Jesus' faithfulness, not what we do. God's grand act of faithfulness is giving His son for our sake. God is all in. Jesus' grand act of faithfulness is going through with it for our sake. Jesus is all in. Now it's our move, which really is the point of all this. Like God the Father and God the Son, we are also called to be faithful. On one level, we are faithful to God when we trust God, but faith (pistis) doesn't stop there. It extends, as we've seen, in faithfulness toward each other, in humility and self-sacrificial love. And here is the real kick in the pants: When we are faithful to each other like this, we are more than simply being nice and kind -- though there's that. Far more important, when we are faithful to each other, we are, at that moment, acting like the faithful God and the faithful Son. Being like God. That's the goal. And we are most like God, not when we are certain we are right about God, or when we tell others how right we are, but when we are acting toward one another like the faithful Father and Son. Humility, love, and kindness are our grand acts of faithfulness and how we show that we are all in.

He humbled himself and became obedient unto death.—Phil. 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 our human nature to the glory of the Father, but through death, so with us too. Humility must lead us to die to self: so we prove how wholly we have given ourselves up to it and to God; so alone we are 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.

Christianity had, in Nietzsche’s account, emerged from the minds of timid slaves in the Roman Empire who had lacked the stomach to climb to the tops of mountains, and so had built themselves a philosophy claiming that their bases were delightful. Christians had wished to enjoy the real ingredients of fulfilment (a position in the world, sex, intellectual mastery, creativity) but did not have the courage to endure the difficulties these goods demanded. They had therefore fashioned a hypocritical creed denouncing what they wanted but were too weak to fight for while praising what they did not want but happened to have. Powerlessness became ‘goodness’, baseness ‘humility’, submission to people one hated ‘obedience’ and, in Nietzsche’s phrase, ‘not-being-able-to-take-revenge’ turned into ‘forgiveness’.

Our safety lies in repentance. Our strength comes of obedience to the commandments of God. My beloved brethren and sisters, I accept this opportunity in humility. I pray that I may be guided by the Spirit of the Lord in that which I say. I have just been handed a note that says that a U.S. missile attack is under way. I need not remind you that we live in perilous times. I desire to speak concerning these times and our circumstances as members of this Church. You are acutely aware of the events of September 11, less than a month ago. Out of that vicious and ugly attack we are plunged into a state of war. It is the first war of the 21st century. The last century has been described as the most war-torn in human history. Now we are off on another dangerous undertaking, the unfolding of which and the end thereof we do not know. For the first time since we became a nation, the United States has been seriously attacked on its mainland soil. But this was not an attack on the United States alone. It was an attack on men and nations of goodwill everywhere. It was well planned, boldly executed, and the results were disastrous. It is estimated that more than 5,000 innocent people died. Among these were many from other nations. It was cruel and cunning, an act of consummate evil. Recently, in company with a few national religious leaders, I was invited to the White House to meet with the president. In talking to us he was frank and straightforward. That same evening he spoke to the Congress and the nation in unmistakable language concerning the resolve of America and its friends to hunt down the terrorists who were responsible for the planning of this terrible thing and any who harbored such. Now we are at war. Great forces have been mobilized and will continue to be. Political alliances are being forged. We do not know how long this conflict will last. We do not know what it will cost in lives and treasure. We do not know the manner in which it will be carried out. It could impact the work of the Church in various ways. Our national economy has been made to suffer. It was already in trouble, and this has compounded the problem. Many are losing their employment. Among our own people, this could affect welfare needs and also the tithing of the Church. It could affect our missionary program. We are now a global organization. We have members in more than 150 nations. Administering this vast worldwide program could conceivably become more difficult. Those of us who are American citizens stand solidly with the president of our nation. The terrible forces of evil must be confronted and held accountable for their actions. This is not a matter of Christian against Muslim. I am pleased that food is being dropped to the hungry people of a targeted nation. We value our Muslim neighbors across the world and hope that those who live by the tenets of their faith will not suffer. I ask particularly that our own people do not become a party in any way to the persecution of the innocent. Rather, let us be friendly and helpful, protective and supportive. It is the terrorist organizations that must be ferreted out and brought down. We of this Church know something of such groups. The Book of Mormon speaks of the Gadianton robbers, a vicious, oath-bound, and secret organization bent on evil and destruction. In their day they did all in their power, by whatever means available, to bring down the Church, to woo the people with sophistry, and to take control of the society. We see the same thing in the present situation.

But what do we pray for if we aren’t asking God to tell us exactly what to do? Well, first of all we pray for illumination. We ask God to open our minds so we can understand the Scriptures and apply them to our lives. Don’t forget about this prayer. God can show you amazingly relevant things in His Word if you ask Him to. Second, pray for wisdom. We have not because we ask not. God wants us to make good decisions that will help us be more like Christ and bring Him glory. Third, pray for things that you already know are God’s will. Pray for good motives in your decision making. Pray for an attitude of trust and faith and obedience. Pray for humility and teachability. Pray for His gospel to spread. You know that He wants these things in the world and for your life. Pray for them. Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, as Jesus asked us to (Matthew 6:33). And then after you’ve prayed and studied and sought advice, make a decision and don’t hyper-spiritualize it. Do what seems best. Sometimes you won’t have time to pray and read and seek counsel for a month. That’s why the way of wisdom is about more than getting a decisive word about one or two big decisions in life. The way of wisdom is a way of life. And when it’s a way of life, you are freer than you realize. If you are drinking deeply of godliness in the Word and from others and in your prayer life, then you’ll probably make God-honoring decisions. In fact, if you are a person of prayer, full of regular good counsel from others, and steeped in the truth of the Word, you should begin to make many important decisions instinctively, and some of them even quickly. For most Christians, agonizing over decisions is the only sure thing we know to do, the only thing that feels safe and truly spiritual. But sometimes, oftentimes actually, it’s okay to just decide.

Life within a Templar house was designed where possible to resemble that of a Cistercian monastery. Meals were communal and to be eaten in near silence, while a reading was given from the Bible. The rule accepted that the elaborate sign language monks used to ask for necessities while eating might not be known to Templar recruits, in which case "quietly and privately you should ask for what you need at table, with all humility and submission." Equal rations of food and wine were to be given to each brother and leftovers would be distributed to the poor. The numerous fast days of the Church calendar were to be observed, but allowances would be made for the needs of fighting men: meat was to be served three times a week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Should the schedule of annual fast days interrupt this rhythm, rations would be increased to make up for lost sustenance as soon as the fasting period was over. It was recognized that the Templars were killers. "This armed company of knights may kill the enemies of the cross without stated the rule, neatly summing up the conclusion of centuries of experimental Christian philosophy, which had concluded that slaying humans who happened to be "unbelieving pagans" and "the enemies of the son of the Virgin Mary" was an act worthy of divine praise and not damnation. Otherwise, the Templars were expected to live in pious self-denial. Three horses were permitted to each knight, along with one squire whom "the brother shall not beat." Hunting with hawks—a favorite pastime of warriors throughout Christendom—was forbidden, as was hunting with dogs. only beasts Templars were permitted to kill were the mountain lions of the Holy Land. They were forbidden even to be in the company of hunting men, for the reason that "it is fitting for every religious man to go simply and humbly without laughing or talking too much." Banned, too, was the company of women, which the rule scorned as "a dangerous thing, for by it the old devil has led man from the straight path to paradise the flower of chastity is always [to be] maintained among you.... For this reason none Of you may presume to kiss a woman' be it widow, young girl, mother, sister, aunt or any other.... The Knighthood of Christ should avoid at all costs the embraces of women, by which men have perished many times." Although married men were permitted to join the order, they were not allowed to wear the white cloak and wives were not supposed to join their husbands in Templar houses.

If the claims of the papacy cannot be proven from what we know of the historical Peter, there are, on the other hand, several undoubted facts in the real history of Peter which bear heavily upon those claims, namely: 1. That Peter was married, Matt. 8:14, took his wife with him on his missionary tours, 1 Cor. 9:5, and, according to a possible interpretation of the "coëlect" (sister), mentions her in 1 Pet. 5:13. Patristic tradition ascribes to him children, or at least a daughter (Petronilla). His wife is said to have suffered martyrdom in Rome before him. What right have the popes, in view of this example, to forbid clerical marriage?  We pass by the equally striking contrast between the poverty of Peter, who had no silver nor gold (Acts 3:6) and the gorgeous display of the triple-crowned papacy in the middle ages and down to the recent collapse of the temporal power. 2. That in the Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15:1–11), Peter appears simply as the first speaker and debater, not as president and judge (James presided), and assumes no special prerogative, least of all an infallibility of judgment. According to the Vatican theory the whole question of circumcision ought to have been submitted to Peter rather than to a Council, and the decision ought to have gone out from him rather than from "the apostles and elders, brethren" (or "the elder brethren," 15:23). 3. That Peter was openly rebuked for inconsistency by a younger apostle at Antioch (Gal. 2:11–14). Peter’s conduct on that occasion is irreconcilable with his infallibility as to discipline; Paul’s conduct is irreconcilable with Peter’s alleged supremacy; and the whole scene, though perfectly plain, is so inconvenient to Roman and Romanizing views, that it has been variously distorted by patristic and Jesuit commentators, even into a theatrical farce gotten up by the apostles for the more effectual refutation of the Judaizers! 4. That, while the greatest of popes, from Leo I. down to Leo XIII. never cease to speak of their authority over all the bishops and all the churches, Peter, in his speeches in the Acts, never does so. And his Epistles, far from assuming any superiority over his "fellow-elders" and over "the clergy" (by which he means the Christian people), breathe the spirit of the sincerest humility and contain a prophetic warning against the besetting sins of the papacy, filthy avarice and lordly ambition (1 Pet. 5:1–3). Love of money and love of power are twin-sisters, and either of them is "a root of all evil." It is certainly very significant that the weaknesses even more than the virtues of the natural Peter—his boldness and presumption, his dread of the cross, his love for secular glory, his carnal zeal, his use of the sword, his sleepiness in Gethsemane—are faithfully reproduced in the history of the papacy; while the addresses and epistles of the converted and inspired Peter contain the most emphatic protest against the hierarchical pretensions and worldly vices of the papacy, and enjoin truly evangelical principles—the general priesthood and royalty of believers, apostolic poverty before the rich temple, obedience to God rather than man, yet with proper regard for the civil authorities, honorable marriage, condemnation of mental reservation in Ananias and Sapphira, and of simony in Simon Magus, liberal appreciation of heathen piety in Cornelius, opposition to the yoke of legal bondage, salvation in no other name but that of Jesus Christ.

Never wear pride as the jersey of your dreams. You will miss the goal and lose your dreams if you put on pride!

Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days.

God had spoken to His people through His Word. It had humbled them in their sins, but it had lifted them up to see the grace and mercy of God, and then had directed them into a new life of obedience. In all our desperate searching for ways to find joy, God is telling us that we will never find joy like the joy of knowing God, being humbled in our sins, experiencing His grace, and walking in a life of obedience.

Here is the heart of the gospel: God cares more about the state of your heart, than he does your works. Understand this, God desires you to grow closer and more like Him. He wants from you a heart of submission and obedience. It matters little to him that you spend all day washing dishes for your family of seventeen, if you do it with a heart of pride. You don’t build the kingdom through repetition if while you scrub away the yuck on the plates, you tilt your nose up, relishing in your martyrdom, thanking God you are not like those women who waste their lives in an office. God would much rather you accept your circumstances, like Ruth who had to glean in the fields with the men, with a heart of gratitude and humility.

The idea of cultivation and exercise, so dear to the saints of old, has now no place in our total religious picture. It is too slow, too common. We now demand glamour and fast flowing dramatic action. A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar. The tragic results of this spirit are all about us. Shallow lives, hollow religious philosophies, the preponderance of the element of fun in gospel meetings, the glorification of men, trust in religious externalities, quasi-religious fellowships, salesmanship methods, the mistaking of dynamic personality for the power of the Spirit: these and such as these are the symptoms of an evil disease, a deep and serious malady of the soul. For this great sickness that is upon us no one person is responsible, and no Christian is wholly free from blame. We have all contributed, directly or indirectly, to this sad state of affairs. We have been too blind to see, or too timid to speak out, or too self-satisfied to desire anything better than the poor average diet with which others appear satisfied. To put it differently, we have accepted one another's notions, copied one another's lives and made one another's experiences the model for our own. And for a generation the trend has been downward. Now we have reached a low place of sand and burnt wire grass and, worst of all, we have made the Word of Truth conform to our experience and accepted this low plane as the very pasture of the blessed. It will require a determined heart and more than a little courage to wrench ourselves loose from the grip of our times and return to Biblical ways. But it can be done. Every now and then in the past Christians have had to do it. History has recorded several large-scale returns led by such men as St. Francis, Martin Luther and George Fox. Unfortunately there seems to be no Luther or Fox on the horizon at present. Whether or not another such return may be expected before the coming of Christ is a question upon which Christians are not fully agreed, but that is not of too great importance to us now. What God in His sovereignty may yet do on a world-scale I do not claim to know: but what He will do for the plain man or woman who seeks His face I believe I do know and can tell others. Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days.

God Honors Our Trust in Him He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. PSALM 91:15 Many people have difficulty trusting God because of past hurts. But God is not like the people who have hurt us. We can trust Him! Although God wants to take care of us, His hands are tied by our unbelief and works of the flesh. He is a gentleman and will not just take over without being invited to do so. He waits until we give up the job of self-care and place our trust and confidence in Him. The law of faith, mentioned in 1 Peter 5:7, is this: When you stop trying to take care of yourself, you release God to take care of you! (Paraphrased.) I have discovered that it is very hard to walk in obedience to God and in love with others if my primary interest is that “I” don’t get hurt or taken advantage of. However, when I allow God to be God in my life, He honors three distinct promises He makes in Psalm 91:15: He’ll be with me in trouble, He’ll deliver me, and He will honor me. Honor is a place of lifting up. When God honors a believer, He lifts up or exalts that person. When we let go and do not try to care for ourselves, we are admitting that we need God’s help. It is an act of humility, and that act of faith places us in the direct line of God’s exaltation. Peter wrote, “Therefore humble yourselves [demote, lower yourselves in your own estimation] under the mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you…” (1 Pet. 5:6). When we trust God, we are in line for a promotion. God will honor us and reward us as we place our faith in Him. In the world’s system, you work hard and then get your reward. In God’s economy, you trust Him deeply and then receive your reward.

Fear of the Lord The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise. —PSALM 111:10     The motto of the wisdom teachers is that the fear of the LORD (showing holy respect and reverence for God and shunning evil) is the starting point and essence of wisdom. When you have a fear of the LORD, you express that respect by submission to His will. • “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”—Job 28:28 NASB • “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”—Proverbs 9:10 NASB • “The fear of the LORD is the instruction for wisdom, and before honor comes humility.”—Proverbs 15:33 NASB • “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person.” —Ecclesiastes 12:13 NASB Wisdom is not acquired by a mechanical formula, but through a right relationship with God. It seems that following God’s principles and commandments should be the obvious conclusion of our thankfulness for all He has done for us. In today’s church world, many people have lost the concept of fearing God. The soft side of Christianity has preached only the “love of God.” We haven’t balanced the scale by teaching the other side, His justice and judgment—fear, anger, wrath, obedience, and punishment. Just because some pastors don’t teach it from their pulpits doesn’t make it less a reality. As with involvement with drugs, alcohol, lust, and envy, we must respect the consequences of our actions, or we will be destroyed by them. Our safeguard to resist these life destroyers is to have a proper respect for God. Then we will be obedient to His precepts and stay away from the fire of temptation. God lights the way for our paths, but we must be willing to follow His lighted path.

The gospel proclaims human freedom and dignity more than human enslavement and depravity. What is needed is a balance of biblical values and emphasis on the empowering quality of the gospel. The spiritual values of humility, long suffering, endurance, and obedience are to be affirmed alongside self-reliance, freedom, proclamation, mission, and authority.

What God in His sovereignty may yet do on a worldwide scale I do not claim to know; but what He will do for the plain man or woman who seeks His face I believe I do know and can tell others. Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days. Any man who by repentance and a sincere return to God will break himself out of the mold in which he has been held, and will go to the Bible itself for his spiritual standards, will be delighted with what he finds there. Let

The complacency of the individual who admires his own excellence is bad enough, but it is more respectable than the complacency of the man who has no self-esteem because he has not even a superficial self which he can esteem. He is not a person, not an individual, only an atom. This atomized existence is sometimes praised as humility or as self-sacrifice, some-times it is called obedience, sometimes it is devotion to the dialectic of class war. It produces a kind of peace which is not peace, but only the escape from an immediately urgent sense of conflict. It is the peace not of love but of anesthesia. It is the peace not of self-realization and self-dedication, but of flight into irresponsibility.

Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything

Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days. Any

These are the times foretold by the Prophets, ‘when a nation shall be born in a day',” declared the call for a black political gathering in 1865. A Tennessee newspaper commented in 1869 that freedmen habitually referred to slavery as Paul’s Time, and Reconstruction as Isaiah’s Time (referring perhaps to Paul’s message of obedience and humility, and Isaiah’s prophecy of cataclysmic change brought about by violence). God, who had “scourged America with war for her injustice to the black man,” had allowed his agent Lincoln, like Moses, to glimpse the promised land of “universal freedom” and then mysteriously removed him before he “reached its blessed fruitions.

Do nothing from k selfish ambition or l conceit, but in m humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4Let each of you n look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5[†] o Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, [1] 6[†] p who, though he was in q the form of God, did not count equality with God r a thing to be grasped, [2] 7[†]but s emptied himself, by taking the form of a t servant, [3] u being born in the likeness of men. 8[†]And being found in human form, he humbled himself by v becoming obedient to the point of death, w even death on a cross. 9[†] x Therefore y God has z highly exalted him and bestowed on him a the name that is above every name, 10[†]so that at the name of Jesus b every knee should bow, c in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and d every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is e Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Although the text of this first, primitive, Rule has never been found, there is a general consensus that in essence it required: Poverty, Chastity, Humility, Obedience to God, Prayer, Work, Harmony, and Preaching.

David had a very difficult calling: to wield the power of Israel’s kingship with God-dependent humility. Jonathan’s calling may have been more difficult, however: to yield the power of Israel’s kingship with God-dependent humility. Jonathan didn’t just yield to David. He loved David (1 Sam. 18:1), empowered David (v. 4), and protected and advocated for David (chap. 20). And when David’s faith-hand was losing its grip, Jonathan sought him out and “strengthened his hand” by reminding him of God’s promises (23:16–17). He could have done this only if he trusted in the Lord with all his heart (Prov. 3:5). Like Jonathan, God wants us to seek first the kingdom, not our prominence in the kingdom (Matt. 6:33). When we trust God enough to yield our prominence (or expected prominence) to someone else for God’s purposes, it’s a sign and wonder. And when we go beyond yielding to doing everything in our power to help that person succeed—nothing else quite portrays the Philippians 2 glory of Jesus: Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Phil. 2:5–8) Jonathan did not consider the throne a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself for God’s sake and became a Christlike servant. Let us also “have this mind” (Phil. 2:5).

GRATITUDE & APPRECIATION The time is 22.50 UK time Monday the 7th September 2020 and I have just remembered that it would be the first night of my first conference ever of the vision God has laid in my heart for so many years ‘Indelible Marks of Jesus Christ’ which is based on Hebrews 13:7 NLT, ‘Remember your leaders who taught you the word of God. Think of all the good that has come from their lives, and follow the example of their faith’. I also would like to express my deep gratitude and sincere appreciation to the people who were willing to help and support me for the vision to take off. To Pastor Lindiwe Ncedo, leadership and the church as a whole, my spiritual home ‘Victory Vineyard Ministries, King Williams Town, South Africa. Thank you so much for welcoming, loving and supporting me every time I come home with a mission that needs to be accomplished. It means a lot to me and I will always be grateful for your love and support. To Apostle Oscar Nkosi and Prophetess Busi Nkosi, thank you for your obedience, help and support you have given me. God has used you both tremendously in my life and I was able to take a first step towards the vision God has given me. I really honour and appreciate your spirit of humility and your kindness. May God bless you and keep you both. To Prophet Andre Louw, thank you so much servant of the Most High God your support and the willingness to be a part of laying the foundation of this vision God has blessed me with. I’m really grateful to be surrounded by people like you. May God bless you beyond your imagination. To Pastor Polela: Wow, we have come a long way nkokheli yam; God has used you so much in my life, you understood my pain and your prayers really helped me to navigate through life. Thank you for your love, help and support. May God bless you beyond any known measure. To my East London family, where I would be without you guys: Bishop Nomtha Taki, Apostle Daniel Reed and Pastor Romeo Bosman. You guys rock, thank you so much for your love, help and support and so grateful for your willingness to set up the solid foundation for this vision. May God bless you for more abundantly than all you can even ask or think. To my son Pastor Pumlani Releni, thank you so much for your help and support young man, it means a lot to me. May God bless you always. To my dear sister in Christ Nosipho Soya, thank so much for being there for me when I needed a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen and I’m grateful for your love, help and support. May God bless you beyond your imagination. I am really blessed and grateful to have people like you in my life and I love you all!!!!

So David reigned over all Israel; and David administered justice and righteousness for all his people. 2 Samuel 8:15 Those whose hearts are aligned with the Lord will possess the key of David to further the Kingdom. Obtaining Christ-like character must be a priority for all children of God; it is a requirement for functioning within the ekklesia. The Father is looking for those who have a heart of humility, obedience, service and worship. Releasing righteousness and justice is the purpose of the government of the Kingdom of Heaven.

No one has been 'worthy' to receive communion, no one has been prepared for it. At this point all merits, all righteousness, all devotions disappear and dissolve. Life comes again to us as a Gift, a free and divine gift...Everything is free, nothing is due and yet all is given. And, therefore, the greatest humility and obedience is to accept the gift, to say yes - in joy and gratitude.

Nor do the most shining mental accomplishments, or literary acquisitions, enter into the true glory of this kingdom. Genius and learning, like wealth and power, are frequently possessed by the worst of moral characters. They cannot, therefore, make any part of that excellence by which the subjects of Jesus Christ are distinguished from those secular princes. It is not by the gifts of common Providence, among which parts and learning make a conspicuous figure; but by the graces of the Holy Spirit, that any person, as a Christian, is worthy of regard. -- Yes, it is faith in Christ, and obedience to him; love to God, and benevolence to man; humility, patience, and resignation; spirituality; and heavenly mindedness, which adorn the subjects of our Lord's kingdom --- which distinguish them from the children of this world. These, and similar things, respect the state of the conscience, and of the heart. They form a character for eternity, and favour of the heavenly world.

If God has called you to be really like Jesus in your spirit, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility, and put on you such demands of obedience that He will not allow you to follow other Christians; and in many ways He will seem to let other good people do things that He will not let you do. Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful may push themselves, pull wires and work schemes to carry out their schemes, but you cannot do it; and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent. Others may brag on themselves, on their work, on their success, on their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing; and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works. Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, but it is likely that God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, and that is a helpless dependence upon Him, that He may have the privilege (the right) of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury. The Lord will let others be honoured and put forward, and keep you hidden away in obscurity, because He wants some choice fragrant fruit for His coming glory which can only be produced in the shade. He will let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will let you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He will let others get the credit for the work you have done, and this will make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes. The Holy Spirit will put a watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings or for wasting your time, over which other Christians never seem distressed. So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has the right to do as He pleases with His own, and He may not explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealings with you. He will take you at your word and if you absolutely sell yourself to be His slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love and let other people say and do many things which He will not let you say or do. Settle it for ever that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that He does not deal with others. Now when you are so possessed with the Living God, that you are in your secret heart pleased and delighted over the peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven. These

The Bible tells us that we are both flesh and spirit, and the two are always contending. In fact, the whole of the Scriptures is a historical account of our inner struggle between love and hate, light and darkness, arrogance and humility, knowledge and wisdom, pleasure and joy, honesty and deceit, sinfulness and innocence, enmity and forgiveness, obedience and rebellion, selfishness and sacrifice. And, in the end, life and death.

If you have the blessings of Abraham in your life, then you should also have his obedience, humility and ability to submit to others

Before long, people who have entered the valley of humility feel themselves back in the uplands of joy and commitment. They’ve thrown themselves into work, made new friends, and cultivated new loves. They realize, with a shock, that they’ve traveled a long way since the first days of their crucible. They turn around and see how much ground they have left behind. Such people don’t come out healed; they come out different. They find a vocation or calling. They commit themselves to some long obedience and dedicate themselves to some desperate lark that gives life purpose.

 How such Souls have no will at all. Chapter 9.1 Love. If anyone were to ask such free souls, untroubled and at peace, if they would want to be in Purgatory, they would answer No: if they would want here in this life to be assured of their salvation, they would answer No: if they would want to be in Paradise, they would answer No. Why would they wish for such things? They have no will at all; and if they wished for anything, they would separate themselves from Love; for he who has their will2 knows what is good for them, without their knowing or being assured of it. Such Souls live by knowing and loving and praising; 3 that is the settled practice of such Souls, without any impulse of their own, for Knowledge and Love and Praise dwell within them. Such Souls cannot assess whether they are good or bad, and they have no knowledge of themselves, and would be unable to judge whether they are converted or perverted. Love. Or, to speak more briefly, let us take one Soul to represent them all, says Love. This Soul neither longs for nor despises4 poverty or tribulation, Mass or sermon, fasting or prayer; and gives to Nature all that it requires, with no qualm of conscience; but this Nature is so well ordered through having been transformed in the union with Love, to whom this Soul’s will is joined, that it never asks anything which is forbidden. Such a Soul is not concerned about what it lacks, except at the needful time; and none but the innocent can be without this concern. Reason. For God’s sake, what does this mean? Love. I tell you in reply, Reason, says Love, as I have told you before, and yet again I tell you that every teacher of natural wisdom, every teacher of book-learning, everyone who persists in loving his obedience to the Virtues does not and will not understand this as it should be understood. Be sure of this, Reason, says Love, for only those understand it who should seek after Perfect Love. But if by chance one found such Souls, they would tell the truth if they wanted to; yet I do not think that anyone could understand them, except only him who seeks after Perfect Love5 and Charity. Sometimes, says Love, this gift is given in the twinkling of an eye; and let him who is given it hold fast to it, for it is the most perfect gift which God gives to a creature. This Soul is learning in the school of Divine Knowledge, 6 and is seated in the valley of Humility, and upon the plain of Truth, and is at rest upon the mountain of Love.

God will snatch away the forgiveness which our repentance, humility, and obedience made possible.

I need hope. I need peace. And I need a Savior. He asks for sacrifices sometimes: obedience, humility. But He offers His love regardless.

Humility is the mother of all virtues; purity, charity and obedience. It is in being humble that our love becomes real, devoted and ardent. If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are. If you are blamed, you will not be discouraged. If they call you a saint, you will not put yourself on a pedestal. Saint Teresa of Calcutta.

God inspires us with wisdom when we seek His humility for elevation in Obedience

The ladder in Jacob’s dream has two sidepieces and six rungs on which one can climb to the top. This ladder symbolizes Jesus Christ. The two sidepieces are his two natures: divine and human. The six rungs are Christ’s six virtues: humility, poverty, wisdom, mercy, patience and obedience.… Behold the ladder stands ready even today. Why do you hesitate to climb it?

The black habit does not save. The one who wears a white habit, the clothing of an ordinary person, and has the spirit of obedience, humility and purity, that one is an untonsured monk, one of interiorized monasticism.

COUNTERFEIT CROSS Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matt. 16:24). A misunderstanding of this call has led many to follow His life of self-denial, but to stop short of His life of power. For them the cross-walk involves trying to crucify their sin nature by embracing joyless brokenness as an evidence of the cross. But, we must follow Him all the way—to a lifestyle empowered by the resurrection! Most every religion has a copy of the cross-walk. Self-denial, self-abasement, and the like are all easily copied by the sects of this world. People admire those who have religious disciplines. They applaud fasting and respect those who embrace poverty or endure disease for the sake of personal spirituality. But show them a life filled with joy because of the transforming power of God, and they will not only applaud but will want to be like you. Religion is unable to mimic the life of resurrection with its victory over sin and hell. One who embraces an inferior cross is constantly filled with introspection and self-induced suffering. But the cross is not self-applied—Jesus did not nail Himself to the cross. Christians who are trapped by this counterfeit are constantly talking about their weaknesses. If the devil finds us uninterested in evil, then he’ll try to get us to focus on our unworthiness and inability. This is especially noticeable in prayer meetings where people try to project great brokenness before God, hoping to earn revival. They will often reconfess old sins searching for real humility. In my own pursuit of God, I often became preoccupied with ME! It was easy to think that being constantly aware of my faults and weaknesses was humility. It’s not! If I’m the main subject, talking incessantly about my weaknesses, I have entered into the most subtle form of pride. Repeated phrases such as, “I’m so unworthy,” become a nauseating replacement for the declarations of the worthiness of God. By being sold on my own unrighteousness, the enemy has disengaged me from effective service. It’s a perversion of true holiness when introspection causes my spiritual self-esteem to increase, but my effectiveness in demonstrating the power of the gospel to decrease. True brokenness causes complete dependency on God, moving us to radical obedience that releases the power of the gospel to the world around

There is a surprise here. The great apostle does not want to visit simply so he can encourage them. He will visit so that they can encourage him, too—“that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith” (v 12). This is striking! Since Paul sought out encouragement from other believers, and since if Paul sought that encouragement in the faith of other believers, how much more should we?! Verses 11-12 begin to show us part of what the obedience that comes through faith is; it is obeying Christ by having the humility to serve, and be served by, his people. Verse 11 teaches us to use whatever gifts the Lord has graciously given us to make others stronger in their faith. Verse 12 teaches us to allow others to use the faith and gifts the Lord has given them to build us up.