Every Christian man has a choice between being humble and being humbled.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of humility and suggests that individuals can choose to be humble or face the consequences of being humbled by life.
Charles Spurgeon highlights a fundamental choice that Christian men face regarding humility. The quote suggests that embracing humility leads to personal growth and integrity, whereas failing to be humble may result in challenging situations that force one to confront their pride and shortcomings. It serves as a reminder of the virtue of humility and the potential consequences of arrogance.
In practice
In a speech on personal character, one might use this quote to illustrate the importance of humility in leadership.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
People do not want advice - they want corroboration.
A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself.
Fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now.
The only way to tell the truth is to speak with kindness. Only the words of a loving man can be heard.
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