A Right Estimation of One's Self

Humility is a right estimation of one's self. Not more, not less than what one really is. Humility is the willingness to be known, to be talked about, to be thought about, and to be treated just according to the truth. Poor, lost, wandering souls... only of any value because of a kind and merciful God took what was worthless and redeemed it!

Humility is living in the constant awareness of the importance of other people - their needs, their struggles, their hurts, their joys and dreams, their lives. If I am humble, my life and wants and rights will not be so important.... because I see myself for who I really am - very small and unworthy!

- Some thoughts from Matthew Henry and Steve Gallagher, put into my own words. :)

The Entire Population

"It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe,
with one trifling exception, is composed of others." - J.A. Holmes

Time to read, but no time to blog!

In recent days I've been caring for an elderly lady a lot. She lives in a quiet little house in town and I spend a lot of afternoons with her and some nights. While she's dozing on the chair, I have time to study with no interruptions. It's wonderful!

However, it ensures that I have no spare moments online. Hence, the lack of lengthy blog posts from me in recent days. I hope to figure out some way to make my blogging work while watching her. Maybe one of her neighbors will decide to set up an unsecured wireless network and I can use that??

In the mean time though, watching her has given me time to read much more than usual. (Yes, most of it is exciting stuff like studying all the cautions/side effects of various medicated creams for yeast infections!) A couple of afternoons ago, I put down Varney's and read the whole of A.W. Tozer's "The Pursuit of God." A few quotes were too good not to take the time to share with you!

One of the premises of his book is that our relationship to God (and thus, every area of life and every relationship) must be one of sincerity and humility. I did some soul searching, and asked the Lord to make me more sincere and humble, and He has been faithful to do just that!

The other day I found myself wondering why so many big, humbling, hard things were happening in one afternoon and wondering what could happen next. I felt extremely insignificant and about 1 inch tall. I was watching everyone else receive exactly what I had wanted so badly and see that they were doing a much better job than I ever could have. There's nothing quite like realizing that God doesn't need you and that other people don't find you indispensable either!!

As I was musing on the turn of events in several areas of life I realized something. This was exactly what I had asked for, right? I managed to smile and say, "Thank you, God! I don't like it, but it's exactly what I asked for, and I still want it!"



"[Christ] waits to be wanted."

"Lift up thine heart unto God with a meek stirring of love, and mean Himself, and none of His goods."

"Whoever defends himself will have himself for his defense, and he will have no other; but let him come defenseless before the Lord and he will have for his defender no less than God Himself."

"To be specific, [the] self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love, and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them...
They are not something we do, they are something we are, and therein lies both their subtlety and power."

"When we talk of the rending of the veil [of Self] we are speaking in a figure, and the thought is poetical, almost pleasant; but in actuality there is nothing pleasant about it. In human experience that veil [of Self] is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us, and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free...
Let us beware of tinkering with our inner life in hope ourselves to rend the veil. God must do everything for us. Our part is to yield and trust.... [But] we must insist upon the work being done....
Insist that the work be done in very truth and it will be done. The cross is rough, and it is deadly, but it is effective. It does not keep its victim hanging there forever. There comes a moment when the work is finished and the suffering victim [Self] dies. After that is resurrection glory and power, and the pain is forgotten for joy..."

-- A.W. Tozer

That is less of self, and more of Christ!

When you are forgotten or neglected,
or purposely set at naught,
and you don't sting,
and hurt with the insult or the oversight,
but your heart is happy,
being counted worthy
to suffer for Christ,
That is less of self and more of Christ!

When your good is evil spoken of,
when your wishes are crossed,
your advice disregarded,
your opinions ridiculed,
and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart,
or even defend yourself,
but take it all in patient, loving silence,
That is less of self and more of Christ!

When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder,
any irregularity,
any impunctuality,
or any annoyance;
when you stand face to face with waste,
folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility,
and endure it as Jesus endured it,
That is less of self and more of Christ!

When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation,
or to record your own good works,
or itch after commendation,
when you can truly love to be unknown,
That is less of self and more of Christ!

When you are content with any food, any offering,
any raiment, any climate, any society,
any solitude, any interruption
by the will of God,
That is less of self and more of Christ!

When you can see your brother prosper
and have his needs met,
and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit
and feel no envy nor question God,
while your own needs are far greater
and in desperate circumstances,
That is less of self, and more of Christ!

When you can receive correction and reproof
from one of less stature than yourself,
and can humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly,
finding no rebellion or resentment rising up
within your heart,
That is less of self, and more of Christ!

Author Unknown;
modified from a poem in
The Heartbeat of the Remnant magazine

Full of Self and Sin Am I

"Full of self and sin am I,
Thou art full of truth and grace...."

I remember singing these words so many times as a little girl. Only recently have I really sang them, fully appreciating what they say.

In reading "Embraced by the Cross," formerly titled, "Born Crucified," by L.E. Maxwell, I had to stop and re-read these parts several times, marveling at the truth in them...

Until Christ works out in you an inner crucifixion which will cut you off from self-infatuation and unite you to God in a deep union of love, a thousand Heavens could not give you peace.

That description - self-infatuation. Wow. Never heard it said like that before, but does it ever sum up my life.

Man was meant to have GOD as the center of his life, his very breath, his light and deepest joy -
"the central Sun of his universe - from this secret place of the Most High, man broke off and plunged out into the far country of self, into the alienation and night of separation from God. God has been cast down. Self has usurped the throne, a usurper who never abdicates. Self is the new and false center upon which man has fixed. He loves himself as nothing else under the sun. Even his best deeds are but refined forms, the filthy rags, of his secret selfishness. He does always with his right hand so that the left hand of self satisfaction may know it....

"The Son of Man was made sin - made a curse - lifted up like a serpent....Only the serpent can symbolize the truth. That throws an awful ray of light upon me. It shoots me through and through. I am perfectly photographed - not my sins only, but myself. What I did only sprang from what I am. The unvarnished truth is out. It is I, my very self. Why pull down the blinds?

"....Does such an admission seems too dreadful? Do I halt from owning it? But dare I disown it? Until I own it, I can never disown it. From the throne of the Cross, high and lifted up, I am drawn first to own and then disown self.... I must sign my own death sentence....

"Such a denial of self is not mere severing of this or that indulgence, but putting the ax to the very root of the tree of self. God says, 'Cut the tree down,' not merely trim it back. ALL self-righteousness, self-esteem, self-vindication, self-glory, and fatal self-pity - these and ten thousand other manifestations are but the fleshly foliage, the myriad branchings of that deeply rooted tree of self."

Full of self and sin am I,
Thou art full of truth and grace.

What a good God I love and serve!