July 8 2020
FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
GRACE OF HUMILITY: ANTIDOTE TO APOSTASY
“Draw nigh (near) unto God and He will draw nigh unto you. Cleanse your hands ye sinners [from the spiritual ‘coronavirus’]; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded.”
James 4:8, Authorized Version
“The nearer the Christian lives to God, the more he advances in divine illumination of mind. He has more distinct sense of his own littleness, discerns his defects of character, and sees his duty in the light in which God presents it.
“The more closely he draws to Jesus, the more he has a bear and clear sense of his defects which had before escaped his notice, and he sees the necessity of humbling himself under the mighty hand of God.
“If lifted up it will not be because he lifts and exalts himself, but because the Lord exalts Him. Having his eyes fixed in the purity and perfection of Christ Jesus, and acknowledging and obeying God in ALL his ways, he is NOT blinded to his own failures and imperfections……
“Christian humility is a wonderful grace—the very antidote to the apostasy of Satan, which has UNHOLY AMBITION and every delusion that he can frame.
“The grace of humility through Christ Jesus will make an imperfect man discern his imperfections and make him ‘meet (fit) for the inheritance of the saints,’ where God is all and in all.”
EGW Letter 21c, Jan.8, 1892/TDG18.
Beware of false humility forced by peer pressure, political correctness, or to please and impress men. This is what “living a lie” means. Fault-finders are blind to the “beam” (or log of a tree) “in their own eye.” But the true messengers of God who “cry aloud and spare not” will be falsely accused by “the accuser of the brethren” (Satan and his many agents) of being critical, fault-finding, censorious and trouble-makers. Plead for the grace of humility in the midst of the global pride pandemic! “Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall!” Humble me O Lord! NMF