What is humility of mind? Humility is to make a right estimate of
one’s self. It is no humility for a man to think less of himself than he
ought, though it might rather puzzle him to do that. Some persons, when
they know they can do a thing, tell you they cannot: but you surely
would not call that humility? A man is asked to take part in some good
work: “No,” he says, “I have no ability;” yet, if you were to say so of
him, he would be offended at you. It is not humility for a man to stand
up and depreciate himself, and say he cannot do this, that, or the
other, when he knows that it is untrue. If God gives a man a talent, do
you think the man does not know it? If a man has ten talents, he has no
right to be dishonest to his Maker, and to say, “Lord, thou hast only
given me five.” It is not humility to underrate your endowments:
humility is to think of yourself, if you can, as God thinks of you. It
is to feel that if we have talents, God has given them to us, and let it
be seen that, like freight in a vessel, they tend to sink us low. The
more we have, the lower we ought to lie. Humility is not to say, “I have
not this gift;” but it is to say, “I have the gift, and I must use it
for my Master’s glory. I must never seek any honor for myself; for what
have I that I have not received?” Humility is to feel that we have no
power of ourselves, but that it all cometh from God. Humility is to lean
on our Beloved, saying, “I can do all things through Christ, who
strengtheneth me.” It is, in fact, to annihilate self, and to exalt the
Lord Jesus Christ as All in All.