The greatest need in the church today is the gospel.  The gospel is not only news for a perishing world, it is the message that forms, sustains, and animates the church.  Apart from the gospel, the church has nothing to say–that is, noting to say that cannot be said by some human agency.  The gospel distinguishes the church from the world, defines her message and mission in the world, and steels her people against the fiery darts of the evil one and the false allurements of sin.  The gospel is absolutely vital to a vibrant, joyous, persevering, hopeful, and healthy Christian and Christian church.  So essential is the gospel to the Christian life that we need to be saturated in it in order to be healthy church members.

From What is a Healthy Church Member? by Tabiti M. Anyabwile, page 39

I’m working my way through Humility: True Greatness by C. J. Mahaney.  When I first read the book a couple years ago, I remember it being a book to pick up again.  And sure enough I have picked it up again.  Here are some quotes from it that I found quite stimulating.  Some quotes are from C. J. himself and others are from various people.

This is the promise of humility.  God is personally and providentially supportive of the humble.  And the grace He extends to the humble is indescribably rich.  As Jonathan Edwards wrote, “The pleasures of humility are really the most refined, inward, and exquisite delights in the world.” (pg 21)

Humility is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness.  (pg 22)

The real issue here is not if pride exists in your heart; it’s where pride exists and how pride is being expressed in you life.  (pg 29)

Pride is when sinful human beings aspire to the status and position of God and refuse to acknowledge their dependence upon Him.  (pg 31)

John Calvin wrote, “God cannot bear with seeing his glory appropriated by the creature in even the smallest degree, so intolerable to him is the sacrilegious arrogance of those who, by praising themselves, obscure his glory as far as thy can.” (pg 33)

Jonathan Edwards called pride “the worst viper that is in the heart” and “the greatest disturber of the soul’s peace and sweet communion with Christ”; he ranked pride as the most difficult sin to root out, and “the most hidden, secret and deceitful of all lusts.”  (pg 34)

Charles Spurgeon once preached on the foolishness of pride, calling it “a groundless thing” and “a brainless thing” as well as “the maddest thing that can exist.”  (pg 39)

Mahaney, C. J., Humility: True Greatness.  Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2005