Salvation's Humility

One of the virtues that must be and will be found in the child of God is humility. Boast about what you did, and you not only show spiritual weakness, but you reveal that you are in need of a very important work upon and in you.

Remember the Pharisee who boasted of his holiness, and of the publican who called himself the biggest sinner that he knew. That is right! In the Greek version he says, "God be merciful to me the sinner." He did not call himself a sinner but the sinner.

A man knows his own heart and sinfulness better than the heart of a brother or neighbor. Humility must be ours as well as the publican's. If we are to walk confident of being justified, we must know our sinfulness and helplessness.

Take note of what Paul wrote to the Philippians in chapter 4:13:"I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." He is not boasting here. He is confessing that Christ enables him to be faithful and to be satisfied with what God gives him or takes away from him.

Let us apply that to our lives in all humility before God. Never boast of your faith. Never claim that Christ is in you because you opened your heart and let Him in. Had He not already been in your heart you would be spiritually dead and unable to hear anything spiritually good. In Revelation 3:20 Jesus stands at the door of the church at Laodicea, not at the door of man's heart. And He calls the elect children in that church to insist that He be preached therein, rather than the false doctrines which He condemns in the first part of the letter.

Never boast of anything you have done. Praise God, with Paul, for strengthening you after giving you a new spiritual life. Boast not of your works, but praise Him for the works of His grace in Christ.

A sure sign that we are saved is that we glorify God and give Him credit for all that we do that is right in His sight. To Him be the glory.

Read: Ephesians 2:1-10 .

Through the Bible in One Year
Read today:
Lamentations 4 ; Lamentations 5:1-22 
Hebrews 2:1-18 
Psalm 103:1-22 
Proverbs 26:23 
****
Quote for Reflection:

R. C. H. Lenski:

Anything that is wrong in God’s sight grieves a heart that is full of love, not merely because the wrong hurts the one to whom it is done, but especially because God is displeased with the wrong and must punish the wrongdoer. Instead of rejoicing over the wrong, love grieves over the wrong ... Unrighteousness prevails where the heart has pleasure in it, loves it, and thus rejoices in it. There the love that Paul describes is absent. But where the heart ‘rejoices with the truth,’ embraces it gladly, finds pleasure in possessing it, there unrighteousness is driven out ... This love finds pleasure in every progress which the truth makes in the hearts of men, namely in every bit of their conduct which shows that they love and obey this truth.