The humble man feels no jealousy or envy. He can praise God when
others are preferred and blessed before him. He can bear to hear
others praised and himself forgotten, because in God's presence he has
learnt to say with Paul, 'I am nothing.' He has received the spirit of
Jesus, who pleased not Himself, and sought not His own honour, as the
spirit of his life.
Amid what are considered the temptations to impatience and touchiness,
to hard thoughts and sharp words, which come from the failings and
sins of fellow-Christians, the humble man carries the oft-repeated
injunction in his heart, and shows it in his life, _'Forbearing one
another, and forgiving one another, even as the Lord forgave you.'_ He
has learnt that in putting on the Lord Jesus he _has put on the heart
of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and long-suffering._
Jesus has taken the place of self, and it is not an impossibility to
forgive as Jesus forgave. His humility does not consist merely in
thoughts or words of self-depreciation, but, as Paul puts it, in 'a
heart of humility,' encompassed by compassion and kindness, meekness
and long-suffering,--the sweet and lowly gentleness recognised as the
mark of the Lamb of God.
In striving after the higher experiences of the Christian life, the
believer is often in danger of aiming at and rejoicing in what one
might call the more human, the manly, virtues, such as boldness, joy,
contempt of the world, zeal, self-sacrifice,--even the old Stoics
taught and practised these,--while the deeper and gentler, the diviner
and more heavenly graces, those which Jesus first taught upon earth,
because He brought them from heaven; those which are more distinctly
connected with His cross and the death of self,--poverty of spirit,
meekness, humility, lowliness,--are scarcely thought of or valued.
Therefore, let us put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility,
meekness, long-suffering; and let us prove our Christlikeness, not
only in our zeal for saving the lost, but before all in our
intercourse with the brethren, forbearing and forgiving one another,
_even as the Lord forgave us._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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