"Himself humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death" (Philippians 2.8).
Humility is the way to death, because in death it gives the greatest proof of its perfection. Humility is the flowering of which death to the ego is the perfect fruit. Jesus humbled himself to death, and opened the way in which we must also walk. Just as there was no way for Him to prove His absolute surrender to God or to desist and leave human nature for the glory of the Father, not to be death, so it is with us. Humility has to lead to death for the ego; then, we prove how completely we desist from ourselves for him and for God: only, then, are we liberated from the fallen nature and find the way that leads to life in God, to the full birth of the new nature, of which the humility is the encouragement and joy.
We have spoken of what Jesus did for His disciples when He transmitted His resurrection life to them, when, in the descending of the Holy Spirit, He, the glorified and enthroned Manso, came from the heavens to dwell in them.
He gained the power to do that through death: the life He divided, in its most intrinsic character, was a life that came out of death, a life that was delivered to death and was won by death. He, who came to live in the disciples it was, He still, Someone who had been killed and now lived forever. His life, His person, His presence carry the marks of death, of being a life born of death. That life in His disciples also always bears the marks of death; It is like the Spirit of death, of the Dead, living and working in the soul, that the power of His life can be known. The first and foremost of the dying marks of the Lord Jesus, of the marks of death that indicate the true follower of Jesus, is humility, for these two reasons: only humility leads to perfect death and only death is perfected by humility. Humility and death are, in essence, only one: humility is the embryo, and, in death, the fruit is matured to perfection.
Humility means the desisting of the ego and taking the place of the perfect nothingness before God. Jesus humbled himself and became obedient to death. In death, He gave the greatest and most perfect proof of having desisted from His desire in favor of God's desire. In death, He desisted from Yes even, from the ego in drinking of the chalice; He gave up on life that he had in union with our human nature; He died for the ego and for the sin He was trying; then, as a man, He entered into the perfect life of God. If it were not for his infinite humility, considering Himself still as nothing, not to be like a servant to do and suffer God's will, He would never have died. That gives us the answer to the question so frequently asked, and of which the meaning is seldom seized in a clear way: "How can I die for the ego?" Death for the ego is not our work, it is the work of God.In Christ you are dead to sin; the life that was in you went through the process of death and resurrection; you can be correct that you are, in fact, dead to sin.
But the full manifestation of the power of that death in its disposition and behavior depends on the extent that the Holy Spirit shares the power of the death of Christ. And it is here that the teaching is necessary: if you entered into full communion with Christ in His death and knew the full liberation of the ego, you would still humiliate yourself. That is your only obligation. Pego-que-si in front of God in complete abandonment; consent from the heart with the fact of its impotence to kill yourself and make you still live; Dive into your own nothingness, in the spirit of meekness and patience and reliable surrender God. Accept every humiliation, look to every man who tries or irritates you as a means of grace to humiliate you. Use every opportunity to humble yourself in front of men as an aid to stay before God. God will accept such humiliation as the proof that you desire that with all your heart, as the best prayer for that, as your preparation for the mighty work of grace from Him, when, by the mighty power of His Holy Spirit, He reveals Christ fully in you, for, then, He, in His way of a servant, to be truly formed in you and to dwell in your heart. That is the path of humility that leads to perfect death, to the full and perfect experience that we are dead in Christ. Oh, let's be careful with the mistake that many make: they I would like to be humble, but they are afraid to be very humble.
They have so many qualifications and limitations, so much reasoning and questioning of what true humility is and does, that they never sincerely submit to it. Take care of that!
Humble yourself to death. It is in death to the ego that the humility of Christ is perfected. It is absolutely correct that at the root of all real experience of more grace, of all true progress in the consecration, of every really growing conformation to the likeness of Jesus, there must be a mortification for the ego which proves, God and the Men, which is genuine, in our disposition and habits. It is unfortunately possible to speak of life death and the floor in the Spirit while even the most naive can not do anything not to see how much there is of ego.
The death to the ego has no more correct mark of death than a humility that makes of oneself someone without a reputation, who empties himself and takes the form of a servant. It is possible to speak a lot and honestly of communion with a despised and rejected Jesus and of carrying His cross, while the meek and humble, the tender and gentle humility of the Lamb of God are not seen, they are rarely seen. The Lamb of God means two things: meekness and death. We will pick up receive it in both forms. In him, those marks are inseparable: they have to be in us too.
"With a single offering, he perfected forever those who were sanctified" (Heb 10.14). The souls that enter In His humiliation they will find In Him the power to see and consider the dead ego, and, like those who learned and They received from Him, to floor with all humility and meekness, supporting one another in love. Death-life she is seen in meekness and humility like Christ's.
