LOVE
AND HUMILITY
By Frank Bartleman
A man who helped
popularize the Azusa Street meeting by his far-reaching
reports was FRANK BARTLEMAN (1871-1935).
There are two errors to be avoided
- dictatorship and lawlessness. Unorganized churches frequently
have a tighter ring of fellowship than those organized.
Sects generally begin with an honest effort to preserve
and restore some long lost truth, but they end in division.
History repeats itself. No religious body has ever recovered
itself after loosing its "first love". To be
like Jesus is the standard that God has set for us. If
Heaven is real, we should live like it, this will produce
"Pentecost". The human spirit too often dominates,
while love and humility are clothed in rags and sit by
the wayside begging. The gentle Jesus is often pushed
aside and knocked down in church meetings. Sin and the
"flesh" will kill any "Pentecost".
The doctor looks at the tongue first. Have you been speaking
evil? Evil speaking denotes a bad heart and every radical
movement for God has ultimately failed on the test of
love.
We need holiness of heart. It is
a vital error to substitute light for heat. "Knowledge
puffeth up, but charity (love), edifieth." Read I
Cor. 13 once more. Be not drawn away from "the simplicity
that is in Christ." Faith gets the most, love works
the most, humility keeps the most. God's vision comes
to humble men. He who seeks to make footprints and do
sublime things is a failure. A self-conscious poser is
a loser. Let self intrude and the whole is spoiled. Excellency
is proportioned to the oblivion of self. A fisher for
compliments has lost God. Self-consciousness must go.
We are too conscious of the other fellow, we need a God-consciousness.
Humility, not infallibility, becomes fallen creatures.
Infallibility is the apex of Satan's proposition to man.
The deepest repentance and humility and our own frailty
and weakness must be realized before we can know God's
strength. Receding guns vanish out of sight after firing
and so must we, for safety. WE NEED TO BE BROKEN!
Reference Used - "Azusa
Street" by Frank Bartleman |
