I have always loved the words of Chrysostom, “The foundation of our philosophy is humility.” I have also loved Augustine’s words even more, “When an orator is asked, ‘What is the first principle of being eloquent?’ He will say, ‘Delivery.’ ‘What is the second principle?’ Answered, ‘Delivery.’ ‘What is the third principle?’ Answered: ‘Delivery.’ But if you ask me in regard to the foundational principles of Christianity, I will answer that the first, second, and third principle is this: humility.” When Augustine speaks of humility, he is not speaking about when a person refrains from pride. Instead, what he’s talking about is when a person feels like that he or she has no refuge except for in humility. This is clear from another passage, “Let no man flatter himself. In himself, he is a devil. His happiness comes entirely from God. What do you have of your own except your own sin? Own your sin, because it belongs to you. Righteousness, on the other hand, belongs to God.” Again, he writes, “Why assume that nature has so much ability? It is wounded, maimed, and lost. What is needed is genuine confess, not self-justifying defenses.” “When people finally realize that they cannot help themselves and their inner “weapons” are broken, the war is ended.”

All our “weapons” of sin must be broken to pieces and burned with fire. You must remained unarmed before the Lord, refusing to help yourself. The weaker you are, the more the Lord will sustain you. In Psalm 70, we are told not to remember our own righteousness so that we might recognize the righteousness of God. The Psalm shows that God bestows his grace upon us so that we would know we are nothing. We only stand by the mercy of God, seeing that in ourselves we are altogether wicked. We should not argue with God, defending our “rights.” Nothing of ours is ever lost in salvation of sheer grace. Our insignificance is his exaltation. Confessing our insignificance attaches us to God’s mercy.

I’m not saying that you need to confess your insignificance even if you aren’t convinced. Instead, I am hoping you find the cure of the disease of self-love and ambition. These things blind us and make us think more highly of ourselves than we ought to. The remedy is to look into the faithful mirror of Scripture and see ourselves as we really are.

“Blogging the Institutes” is my on-going attempt to paraphrase John Calvin’s work, the Institutes of the Christian Religion. You can find out more about the series in the Introduction. For all the posts in this series, check out the Master List.