Humility - Evidence of Godliness

"Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us; but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake" (Psalm 115:1)

Someone wrote to the godly Macarius of Optino that his spiritual counsel had been helpful. "This cannot be," Macarius wrote in reply. "Only the mistakes are mine. All good advice is the advice of the Spirit of God, His advice that I happened to have heard rightly and to have passed on without distorting it."

There is an excellent lesson here that we must not allow to go unregarded. It is the sweet humility of the man of God. "Only the mistakes are mine." He was fully convinced that his own efforts could result only in mistakes, and that any good that came of his advice must be the work of the Holy Spirit operating within him.

Apparently this was more than a sudden impulse of self-depreciation, which the proudest of men may at times feel - it was rather a settled conviction with him, a conviction that gave direction to enter his life.

The spirit of humility is conclusive evidence of vital godliness. It enters into the essence of religion. Here the new nature eminently discovers itself. The humble spirit is that childlike, Christlike temper, which is exclusively the effect of the almighty power of God upon the heart.

~A. W. Tozer~

_______________________

The Holy Spirit Is Here

"And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with on accord in one place" (Acts 2:1)

Pentecost did not come and go - Pentecost came and stayed. Chronologically the day may be found on the historic calendar; dynamically it remains with us in all its fullness of power.

Today is the day of Pentecost. With the blessed Holy Spirit there is no Yesterday or Tomorrow - there is only the everlasting NOW. And since He is altogether God, enjoying all the attributes of the Godhead, there is with Him no Elsewhere; He inhabits an eternal Here. His center is Everywhere; His bound is Nowhere. It is impossible to leave His presence, though it is possible to have Him withdraw the manifestation of that presence.

Our insensibility to the presence of the Spirit is one of the greatest losses that our unbelief and preoccupation have cost us. We have made Him a tenet of our creed, we have enclosed Him in a religious word, but we have known Him little in personal experience. 

When the Holy Spirit comes into our lives He does something. He accomplishes something. He is more than a sentiment, a feeling, a fancy. He is an infinite force that enables us to accomplish all for which we were called as the disciples of Christ.

~A. W. Tozer~