Man’s Chief Care, Highest Virtue, and Only Happiness
Man need only look back to the origin of existence and he will acknowledge that he owes everything to God. Man’s chief care, his highest virtue, and his only happiness, now and through all eternity, is to present himself as an empty vessel in which God can dwell and manifest His power and goodness. The life God bestows is imparted not once and for all, but each moment continuously, by the unceasing operation of His mighty power. Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is, from the very nature of things, the first duty and the highest virtue of man. It is the root of every virtue. And so pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil. It was when the now fallen angels began to look upon themselves with self-satisfaction that they were led to disobedience and were cast down from the light of heaven into outer darkness. When the serpent breathed the poison of his pride—the desire to be like God—into the hearts of our first parents, they, too, fell from their high estate into all the wretchedness in which man is now sunk. In all heaven and earth, pride and self-exaltation are the gate and the curse of hell.
Andrew Murray, Humility
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