I will remember that faith is, as Dr. Gresham Machen, professor of apologetics at Westminster Seminary, used to say, “The beggar attitude.” God is in the business of making beggars out of all His disciples. The natural man bristles at this. He wants to be self-sufficient, capable, unneedy.
According to the world’s standard, the church at Laodicea had arrived. It was rich, increased with goods, and had need of nothing (Revelation 3:17). Yet Jesus said it was the worst of all His churches, fit to be thrown out.
I love to be self-sufficient! I loathe depending upon someone else! Yet God continually whisks away my resources until I crawl beggarlike to His door and ask for help. This is because I stubbornly refuse to be beggarlike in spirit.
The Bible is full of beggar-spirited people: Abel, the Syrophoenician woman, the publican, and others. They received the blessing while the self-sufficient ones went away empty. Jesus said I must become a child. Is there ever a greater beggar than a child? Beggary is a child’s nature and never a blush about it. That is the way God wants me to be. It is when I beg that God is able to put His (not my) resources into my hands; and, after all, nothing works like God’s power.
The spiritual beggar has a keen eye of faith, a proper system of values, and a successful method of prayer. He knows that when all the niceties are strained out of his coming to God, the whole matter boils down to “his need and God’s supply.” That is why beggars are direct, simple, and expectant. What a beggar George Mueller was! Lord, may heaven’s doors be open toward me like that!
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).
Daily with the King 