40 Days of Prayer, Day 26
Day 26, Thursday, September 15
I will bless the LORD at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make its boast in the LORD; The humble will hear it and rejoice. O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together. Psalm 34:1-3
The Contrite Heart Produces a Humble Heart
God is a God of relationships. He rescued us from our human pride, the source of all other sin and rebellion in the world. He rescued us from our pride by sending His Own Son to take on our humanity. As Paul wrote in Philippians, “He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” God rescued us from the devastation of our pride by sending His Son in humility. Christ Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, was the only human that ever had the right to make much of Himself but instead became the servant of all. Through His humility we are rescued from our pride.
When David boasted, he boasted in the LORD. When we boast in ourselves, our independence, our freedom, our own accomplishments, we separate ourselves from God because it demeans His unbelievable work in creating us and in saving us. When we boast in ourselves, we are elevating ourselves into God’s rightful place. However, when we boast in the LORD, acknowledging His greatness and our dependence on Him, then those who are “humble will hear it and rejoice.” They even join in the chorus of praise to God. “O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt His name together.” Humility is absolutely necessary for salvation to occur. We cannot think much of ourselves and think much of God at the same time. We cannot make much of ourselves and make much of God at the same time. Those with a contrite heart turn their praise heavenward, away from themselves and toward God.
The following is from Andrew Murray’s book Humility.
The life God bestows is imparted not once for all but each moment by the unceasing operation of His mighty power. Humility, the place of entire dependence upon God, is from the very nature of things the first duty and the highest virtue of His creatures. And so pride – the loss of humility – is the root of every sin and evil….It was when the serpent breathed the poison of his pride-the desire to be as God-into the hearts of our first parents, that they too fell from their high estate into the wretchedness to which all humankind has sunk. In heaven and on earth, pride or self-exaltation is the very gateway to hell.
And so it follows that nothing can save us but the restoration of our lost humility, the original and only true relationship of the creature to its God. And so Jesus came to bring humility back to earth, to make us partakers of it, and by it to save us. In heaven He humbled himself to become a man. The humility we see in Him possessed Him in heaven; it brought Him here. Here on earth “He humbled himself and became obedient to death”; His humility gave His death its value, and so became our redemption. And now the salvation He imparts is nothing less and nothing else than a communication of His own life and death. His own disposition and spirit, His own humility, as the ground and root of His relationship with God and His redeeming work in us. Jesus Christ took the place and fulfilled the destiny of people as a creature by His life of perfect humility. His humility became our salvation. His salvation is our humility.
The life of those who are saved, the saints, must bear this stamp of deliverance from sin and full restoration to their original state; their whole relationship to God and to man marked by an all-pervading humility. Without this there can be no true abiding in God’s presence or experience of His favor and the power of His Spirit; without this no abiding faith or love or joy or strength. Humility is the only soil in which virtue takes root; a lack of humility is the explanation of every defect and failure. Humility is not so much a virtue along with the others, but is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God and allows Him, as God to do all.
Prayer Focus
Oh, Lord God, I praise You. You alone are worthy of my praise. Forgive me for making much of myself. Forgive me for thinking too much of myself. You have created me for a relationship with You. My pride and self-reliance broke that creative intent. Now, Oh Lord, receive my prayer of confession and my prayer of dependence. I need You every hour, most gracious Lord. Amen.
From Bunyan’s The Acceptable Sacrifice
Another sign of a broken heart is a crying, a crying out. Pain, you know, will make one cry. Go to them that have upon them the anguish of broken bones, and see if they do not cry; anguish makes them cry. This is that which quickly follows, if once your heart is broken, and your spirit indeed made contrite. I say, anguish will make you cry. 'Trouble and anguish, ' David says, 'have taken hold on me' (Ps. 119:143). Anguish, you know, naturally provokes crying; now, as a broken bone has anguish, a broken heart has anguish. Hence the pains of one that has a broken heart are compared to the pangs of a woman in travail (John 16:20- 22). Anguish will make one cry alone, cry to one's self; and this is called a bemoaning of one's self. 'I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself, ' God says (Jer. 31:18). That is, being at present under the breaking, chastising hand of God. 'You have chastised me, ' he says, 'and I was chastised, as an oxen unaccustomed to the yoke.' This is his meaning also who said, 'I mourn in my complaint, and make a noise.' And why? Why, 'My heart is pained within me' (Ps. 4:2-4). This is a self-bemoaning, a bemoaning themselves in secret. You know it is common with them who are distressed with anguish, though all alone, to cry out to themselves of their present pains, saying, O my leg! O my arm! O the groans, the sighs, the cries, that the broken-hearted have, when by themselves, or alone! O, say they, my sins! my sins! my soul! my soul! How am I loaded with guilt! How am I surrounded with fear! O this hard, this desperate, this unbelieving heart! O how sin defiles my will, my mind, my conscience! 'I am afflicted and ready to die' (Psa 88:15).[9] Could some of you carnal people but get behind the chamber-door, to hear Ephraim when he is at the work of self-bemoaning, it would make you stand amazed to hear him bewail that sin in himself in which you take delight; and to hear him bemoan his wasting of time, while you spend all in pursuing your lusts; and to hear him offended with his heart, because it will not comply with God's holy will, while you are afraid of his Word and ways, and never think yourselves better than when farthest off from God. The unruliness of the passions and lusts of the broken-hearted make them often get into a corner, and thus bemoan themselves.