Our staff at Eastbrook Church is reading through an old classic, Andrew Murray’s Humility. The language and mindset of Murray is so different from our own day and time, but it is helpful to sometimes hear voices like this. There is so much in here, and as I read this very brief book I wrote down some notes that stuck out to me from the book. I’m sharing those notes here without comment. I hope it both challenges and encourages you.

“Meekness and lowliness of heart are the chief marks by which they who follow the Lamb of God are to be known.” (12)

“Humility is the proper estimate of oneself.” – Charles Spurgeon (13)

“Humility is the only soil in which virtue takes root….Humility is not so much a virtue along with others, but is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God and allows Him, as God, to do all.” (17)

“Christ is the expression of the humility of God embodied in human nature; the Eternal Love humbling itself, clothing itself in the garb of meekness and gentleness, to win and serve and save us.” (25-26)

“The health and strength of our spiritual life will depend entirely upon our putting this grace first.” (26)

“This life of entire self-abnegation, of absolute submission and dependence upon the Father’s will, Christ found to be the source of perfect peace and joy. He lost nothing by giving all to God.” (32-33)

“The authority of command and example, every thought, either of obedience or conformity, makes humility the first and most essential element of discipleship.” (39)

“God created the world out of nothing, and as long s we are nothing, He can make something out of us.” – Martin Luther (43)

“The more humble a man is in himself, the more obedient toward God, the wiser will he be in all things, and the more shall his soul be at peace.” – Thomas a Kempis (51)

“The only humility that is really ours is not the kind we try to show before God in prayer, but the kind we carry with us, and carry out, in our ordinary conduct.” (53)

“The one infallible test of our holiness will be our humility before God and others. Humility is the bloom and the beauty of holiness.” (61)

“It [humility] is the displacement of self by the enthronement of God. Where God is all, self is nothing.” (69)

“Being occupied with self, even having the repast self-abhorrence, can never free us from self. It is the revelation of God not only by the law condemning sin but also by His grace delivering from it that will make us humble.” (73)

“Humility is the most difficult of all virtues to achieve; nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of oneself.” – T. S. Eliot (81)

“If you would enter into full fellowship with Christ n His death, and now the full deliverance from self, humble yourself.” (84-85)

“The Lamb of God means two things: meekness and death. Let us seek to receive Him in both forms.” (85)

“Should you ask me: What is the first thing in religion? I should reply: the first, second, and third thing therein is humility.” – St. Augustine (89)

“Many Christians fear and feel and seek deliverance from all that would humble them. At times they may pray for humility, but in their heart of hearts they pray even more to be kept from the things that would bring them to that place.” (91)

“Reckon humility to be the mother-virtue, your very first duty before God, the one perpetual safeguard of the soul, and set your heart upon it as the source of all blessing.” (97)

“We know the law of human nature: acts produce habits, habits breed dispositions, dispositions form the will, and the rightly formed will becomes the character. It is no different in the work of grace.” (98-99)

“Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will exalt you (1 Peter 5:6). It cannot be repeated too often.” (99)

“Clothe yourself, therefore, in this form of humility; all good is enclosed in it; it is a fresh spring from heaven that turns the fire of the fallen soul into the meekness of the divine life, and creates oil out of which the love to God and many gets its flame.” (104)