God gives His grace only to the Humble — Zac Poonen

God Gives His Grace Only to the Humble

The apostle Paul was a very honest man about his personal testimony and when we realized that he was one of the greatest servants of God in the history of the Christian church, his personal life and also in what he accomplished.

So there's a lot that we can learn as to why God could use him so much. We may not have the same ministry. God gives a different ministry to each person and when Paul said, follow me, he told the Corinthians, follow me.

He told the Philippians, follow me. What he meant was not be an apostle like me or a preacher like me. No, we can't follow him there. It's just like when Jesus said to his disciples, follow me, what was he telling them?

He wasn't telling them to raise the dead and walk on water or turn water into wine. None of us can do all that. Always that phrase, follow me in the New Testament relates to life, not ministry. Jesus told us to follow him in the way he lived, not in his ministry.

Now it's a very important principle because there are many people who think that I can follow Jesus in his ministry and start healing the sick. You know, so many of these people who go around claiming to heal the sick, they hardly heal anybody at all.

Jesus healed people in the thousands. There are instances where Jesus would pray for people and every single person was healed. That has never happened in the history of Christianity. Not even the apostles could do that.

So he was not telling us to follow him in his ministry. Paul was an apostle who wrote scripture. We can't follow him there. He planted churches. We can't follow him there. Some can, but not all. So remember, the word follow me in the New Testament refers to following Jesus or Paul in their life.

And that's where Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ. And we should be able to say that also. You may say, well, how dare I say follow me as I follow Christ? Well, the thing is that every one of us has got somebody younger than us.

You know, even a second grade student has got someone younger than him in the first grade of the kindergarten and he can teach them something which they don't know. Even the kindergarten student, I often say in India, that kindergarten six-year-old boy, he can teach somebody.

You know, some of those children who live in the slums in India who don't even know how to read or write, who don't know ABCD, that kindergarten student can teach them ABCD. So every one of us has got someone younger to us to whom, if you are a Christian, you should be able to say, follow me as I follow Christ.

See, when we think of the Christian life, it's like a pathway. Think of it like climbing a mountain towards perfection, something like Mount Everest. Now Jesus has gone all the way to the top and in the snow you see his footsteps and Paul looks at those footsteps of Christ, I'm using an illustration, and plants his feet in those footsteps.

He hasn't reached 30 ,000 feet, 29 ,000 feet like the top of Mount Everest, but he's somewhere, maybe 5 ,000 feet. And then I see Paul's footsteps, not in his ministry, but the way he lived, and I can see his footsteps and I say, I can follow them.

And there are people behind me, younger than me, to whom I can say, hey fellas, follow me as I follow Paul and follow Christ. This is what our Christian life should be. It's not merely preaching. Jesus said, follow me more often than he said, believe in me.

Follow me, follow me, was the word he frequently used. So in Paul's life, there's one thing that he tells us about his life, which revealed how he got the power of God in his life. Now many people think of being filled with the Holy Spirit as the answer to everything.

Now that's important. I believe that is very important. I myself have experienced being filled with the Holy Spirit. But if you're filled with the Holy Spirit and you don't understand this other truth, which I want to emphasize this evening, you will never experience the power of God flowing through you.

You'll only glory in an experience, which you can testify to for the next 25 years. I had an experience way back there. Boy, it was fantastic. That's not what we are supposed to talk about. Paul hardly ever spoke about his Damascus road experience, where he met the Lord, or his experience when he reached Damascus and Ananias came and laid his hands on him and he was filled with the Holy Spirit.

He's mentioned that once or twice, but hardly ever. But there was something else in his life, which he had, the Apostle Paul, which I believe was the secret of why God could accomplish so much through him.

And that is something which we can all follow him. As I said, we cannot follow Jesus in his ministry. For example, the biggest ministry Jesus did was die for the sins of the world. Who can follow him there?

And all the other miracles he did. So I want to turn you to 2nd Corinthians and chapter 12. If you have a Bible, please turn with me to 2nd Corinthians chapter 12. And here he says, in verse, I'm going to read from verse 7 onwards to verse 10.

Paul’s Revelations and the Danger of Pride

Please follow with me. Paul had tremendous revelations of God and of God's purposes. And he also says in verse 2 of this chapter, that he had this fantastic experience of being taken up to the third heaven, the immediate presence of God.

And when he was there, it says, he calls it also paradise, verse 4. And he said he heard some amazing words in heaven that it is not permitted, verse 4, for a man to speak. Remember those words. When Paul was taken up to heaven, he heard some amazing words.

I would like to hear what he heard. But he says it's inexpressible. One who goes up to heaven is not permitted to speak about them when he comes back to earth. Now, if you go to a Google search of people who've gone to heaven and come back, there are so many people.

I don't believe all of them. And I'll tell you why I don't believe all of them, because they talk about what they saw there. And that itself proves to me that it was not heaven that they went to. It was their imagination.

You know, there are some people who have what I call a very fertile imagination. They can shut their eyes and dream something and imagine they've gone to heaven. And so I'm not saying they told lies, but their imagination made them feel they actually ended up in heaven when they didn't.

They were just lying in a bed and having a dream or something like that. And then they write a book about it. There's a case of, this is a true story of a young boy who had an accident, and whether he was in a coma or something, and they say that he died.

And then a little while later, I don't know whether it was a few hours or days later, he came out of that coma. And his father made him write a book about his experience in heaven. And there's a fantastic story about this little boy going to heaven, and one of the major Christian publishers in America published it.

Thousands of copies were sold. That little boy grew up, and a little later, about five or ten years later, said to everyone, the whole thing was a lie. My dad made me write it. But do you know the number of people who bought thousands of Christians who bought that book and believed it?

Don't believe all these things. There are so many stories that Christians, so-called Christians say to get fame. Paul never said this to get fame. Remember this, and it'll save you from being deceived.

When a man is taken up to heaven, actually, there are very few people who got up there. Paul was one of them. If he hears something, according to 2nd Corinthians 12 .4, he is not permitted to tell that to anyone.

So if a man really goes up to heaven, he'll never be able to tell us what he heard there. He's not permitted. That's just by the way. But he goes on to say, because of these fantastic experiences of being taken up to heaven, and being used to write scripture, and planting churches, and the miracles he did, you know, handkerchiefs that touched his body would be put on someone, and demons would be cast out, and people would be healed.

That was fantastic. Because of all these experiences, you know what can happen to a man when he is used by God like that? He begins to get puffed up, and he became proud, and Paul is honest about it. He says, I was in danger of becoming proud.

My brothers and sisters, it's a wonderful thing if you can get light on the fact that you are in danger of becoming proud. That the way you speak to other Christians is in a very proud way. I've heard many Christians speak something like the Pharisee.

You know, the Pharisee said even to God, I thank you that I'm not like other people. And that thought can be in your mind. Maybe you had some wonderful experiences. Maybe God has used you in some way, or you had a close walk with God, and you can begin to think that you are somebody.

And the moment pride comes in, it's the devil. The devil became the devil through pride. In my lifetime, I've been a Christian 60 years, I've heard many, many people boast to me about what they've accomplished, and where they've gone, and how they served the Lord.

And I'll tell you quite honestly, I have zero respect for all of them. Anyone who boasts to me what they did, I have zero respect for them. Because they are not like Jesus Christ. I'm not impressed by what people do.

I'm impressed by character. Don't get impressed by what people do. If you want to be saved from deception, look for character. Jesus didn't say, see how I turned water into wine, fellas. Come on, follow me.

That's not what he said. See how I've denied myself, humbled myself, came from heaven, made myself a servant, washing your feet. That is what he told his disciples to follow him. The way I washed your feet, I've taught you to wash one another's feet.

The Humble Service of Washing Feet

Now, when he say wash one another's feet, he was not talking about actually taking off people's shoes and getting a bucket of water and cleaning them. You've got to understand this. See, remember in those days, everybody wore sandals and the roads were not paved like the beautiful roads here in Singapore.

They were mud roads. We have some mud roads like that in India. And very often in the villages, I go with sandals. And I know what happens when you walk through those roads, your feet are dirty. And when you walk into a home, it's very refreshing if you can get your feet under a tap and wash off that dirt.

It's very refreshing. But those days, they didn't have running water or a tap. So they used to have a bucket of water. Rich homes would have a bucket of water near the door. Everybody would come in sandals and all their feet would be dirty.

And they would appoint a slave. Many of those homes had a slave. And the slave's job was all the guests who come in wash their feet. So in Jesus having the last supper with his 12 disciples, he had told the owner of the house, please keep a room ready for me with the food and the table and of course the bucket of water.

But I don't want anybody there. So that rich man did not send his slave up there to wash the feet of the disciples who came. So everybody's sitting there with the dirty feet. And Jesus takes up the bucket and says, I'm the slave here.

What an example. Now, what did he actually do? You need to understand when he said, as I washed your feet, I want you to wash one another's feet. What he meant was, there was a dirty task that somebody had to do for my friends, my disciples.

Nobody was willing to do it. I was willing to do it. Today, the dirty task may not be washing people's feet because we wear shoes and socks and we don't walk on dusty roads. There's no point. That is ridiculous, washing people's feet.

Today, the dirty task may be in your church building, toilet being dirty. The restroom, maybe some child used it and has left it dirty. To go and clean that, that is to follow Jesus in doing a dirty job to make life easier for others.

And like that, if we look around, we can find lowly tasks that we can do for one another to show our love for Christ and for our fellow believers. But there are not many people who want to do those things.

Everybody likes to get into the pulpit and show how well he can preach or anything like that. Now, here we read that Paul, when he talks about following himself, he was in danger of becoming proud. And he says that in 2nd Corinthians 12 verse 7.

I was in danger of exalting myself. I told you it's a wonderful thing if God gives you light on your pride, on your boastfulness, how you very subtly boast about yourself or your children or your family members, how you boast.

You ask yourself to God to give you light on it. There are people who do that and they don't even have the slightest idea that it stinks. It stinks. I tell you, when I hear that, it stinks. My spiritual nostrils revolt against that.

I see this is the smell of hell. The smell of heaven is humility. The smell of hell is boastfulness and pride. And I've seen that in a lot of Christians. I've seen that in the reports that Christians write about the work that they are doing for God.

Stinking. I don't know whether you smell hell there. Well, Paul was in danger of it himself. And God wanted to save Paul from getting proud for one reason. And that is God is the enemy of the proud. And he did not want to be Paul's enemy.

God resists the proud that is written in two verses in scripture. James 4 ,6 and is repeated again three or four pages later in 1 Peter 5 verse 5. Why is it repeated there? In case you read past the first mention of it quickly, God repeats it.

I don't want you to miss this. God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. You know, this is such an important message that we need to have it in front of us all the time. If you want grace, humble yourself.

Never boast. The moment you boast, God becomes your enemy. The moment you try to exalt yourself, God becomes your enemy. The moment you begin to boast about your children, you're going to destroy your children.

I'll tell you that. So, many Christians haven't understood this. Paul understood it. But he realized that I need God's help to keep me humble. I can try to be humble. It can be very artificial. And artificial humility is something that will make you proud of your humility.

And that pride is the worst type of pride when you become proud of your humility. So, God wanted to save Paul from pride for one reason, because God wanted to keep on giving grace to him. And he knew there's a law of God, which is like the law of gravity.

You cannot change the law of gravity anywhere you go. The law of gravity operates that the earth pulls down anything. You throw it up, the earth will pull it down. The law of God resisting the proud is exactly the same.

It doesn't matter who is proud, believer, unbeliever, servant of God, preacher. The moment he's proud, God's law begins to operate. God pushes him down. Even if it's the apostle Paul. God, it's a law.

For example, if Paul jumped off the roof of a high building, the law of gravity doesn't check up. Is that a believer or not? Let me decide whether to pull him down or not. It operates equally. Believer, unbeliever, spiritual person, apostle Paul.

The law of gravity, which God has put into this earth, operates equally for everybody. And I want you, my dear brothers and sisters, to understand this law also. God resists the proud, operates in exactly the same way, whether it's unbeliever, believer, apostle Paul, you, me, or anybody.

Once you understand that, you will never want to be proud. You'll never want to boast about anything, because God will become your enemy that moment. He will oppose you. He will oppose you. He'll oppose you.

You know, I've seen Christians and I've observed Christians for 60 years now. And there are some believers, born-again believers, whom I've known for 30 -40 years. I've seen them consistently in our churches for 30 -40 years.

And in those 30 -40 years, they have not grown spiritually at all. It's like seeing a 40-year-old man sitting in the kindergarten, learning to spell C-A-T as cat and B-A-T as bat. What do you feel about that person?

You feel sorry for the poor man. What's he doing 40 years in the kindergarten? That's how I've seen some believers. And I know why God has kept on opposing them. That's why they don't get any fresh revelation from God.

They don't become more Christ-like. They still lose their temper and they still get irritated and upset. And they love money. And they get anxious and worried. And they boast about how much they pray and fast.

And every mark of a carnal person, exactly the same as it was 40 years ago, they are in the same position today. Why is that? That guy should have been getting a spiritual PhD by now. But he's in the kindergarten because God was resisting him all the time.

There's only one reason why Christians do not grow spiritually. God is resisting them. Every time they try to grow up, God pushes them down. He pushes them down because he sees some pride in them. He sees their glory in something in themselves.

And if you realize that Paul was in danger of it, how much more you and me? So he says here, very honestly, I was in danger of exalting myself. It's absolutely honest. So how did God humble him? It's very interesting.

It says here, God gave him a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan. In other words, God allowed Satan to afflict Paul in some way. Now, one way in which Satan afflicts God's people, we read in the book of Job that Satan came to God and asked permission to attack Job's body.

Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh and God’s Sufficient Grace

Now, that's a wonderful lesson we learned there that Satan could not touch Job's body without first getting God's permission. The Bible says that there was a wall around Job, another wall around his family, and another wall around his property.

There were three walls around Job, and Satan himself says that. In Job chapter 1, I think it's verse 11. Satan says to God, God, you put three walls around Job, one around him, another around his family, around his property.

I can't touch him. Did you know that? That if you're a humble person, if, it's a big if, you're a humble person, there are three walls around you, around you personally, around your family members, wife and children, and around your bank account and all your assets and your property.

And the devil cannot touch any of them without God giving him permission. In other words, God opens up one of those walls, fences or walls, whatever you call it, and tells Satan, okay, you can go in and attack his property.

Wall number three, I make a little opening in that for you. Satan went in and destroyed all of Job's property. He couldn't do that until God had given him permission. I mean, Satan hated Job for years, but he couldn't touch him till one day God said, okay, I'll let you touch him because I'm going to teach Job a lesson.

And Satan asked Job, what about the second wall around his family members? God said, okay, I'll allow you to go through the second wall as well. And Job had 10 children and he killed all of them. And there was one more person in that second circle, that is Job's wife.

And he had permission from God to kill Job's wife. But Satan said, well, his wife is more useful for me alive than dead because I can use her to nag Job and nag Job and nag Job every day so I won't kill her.

I think Satan keeps some wives alive just for that purpose to keep on nagging their husband, irritate them day and night. He could have done it and he didn't do it. He knows whom to kill and whom not to kill.

And then the third was around Job's personal being. And the devil says, can I get through to him? And the devil says, and God said, okay, Satan, you can touch his body, but you can't kill him. And so Satan went and attacked Job.

You read all this in Job chapter 1, chapter 2, with what I think was leprosy. And why I say it's leprosy is because you see him later on sitting outside the gate and it was the lepers who sat outside the gate.

And he was scratching himself with a pot shirt because it was all itching all over him. Yeah. So Paul calls this thorn in the flesh in verse 7, a messenger of Satan. Satan gave him some sickness. Now the reason why God allowed Paul to have this sickness, it says here, is very clearly mentioned, to keep me from exalting myself.

So God, like this were punctured Paul's balloon. So they didn't fly up in the air, brought him down to earth so that God could keep on giving him grace. So when God breaks you, your inner strength in some way and humbles you, it's one of the best things that he can ever do for you.

He's trying to bring you down to zero so that he can bless you and make you a blessing to others. Don't resist God when he does that, because that's God's way of blessing people, not only in the New Testament, but in the Old Testament too.

And Paul goes on to say, he didn't understand this in the beginning. Here was this thorn in the flesh. Now there's another passage in Galatians which indicates that it's probably some type of pus that Paul had in his eyes that is constantly dripping.

And it was a repulsive sight because in Galatians 4, Paul says, you people saw me and you didn't despise me for this sickness I had. In fact, you loved me so much that you guys were willing, would be willing to take out your own eyes and give them to me.

You read that in Galatians 4. That's how we know it was probably some type of eye problem that Paul had, which was so repulsive to people that he said, Lord, can't you get rid of this for me? Why do you want me to stand before people and this thing?

They would look down on me. This great man of God is having eyes that are leaking all the time. And God said, no, I won't do it. Does God heal every sickness? Here's the answer. No. He does heal many times.

I've experienced that myself, but I also know he doesn't heal sometimes. And if he doesn't heal, there's a very good reason for it. Here, Paul prayed three times and he would have prayed 30 times if he did not get an answer.

Paul was the type of person, there was no rule saying you should pray three times. He would pray until he got an answer. He got the answer after three times because he was sensitive to God's voice. And God said to him, I'm not going to heal you.

You need this weakness throughout your life to humble you, to break you. Otherwise, you'll become proud and I'll become your enemy. And Paul, I don't want to be your enemy. I want to give you, keep on giving you grace for the rest of your life so that I can use you mightily all over the world, everywhere and make you write scripture and do so many wonderful things.

But I cannot do that if you become proud. But with all the tremendous experiences you've had and the wonderful ministry you've had, you are in danger of becoming proud. So I have to do something for you.

That's why I've given you this. So don't ask me again for it. You will not be healed. But this will keep you humble. Every time you get up to speak with his eyes leaking, you'll be humbled. People will say, oh, this guy can heal the sick.

Look at his own face. He can't heal himself. That'll keep you humble, Paul. Don't worry about what people think about you. What people think about you is fit for the trash can. Forget it. What do I think about you?

I see Paul, you're a humble man. And I've decided to keep you humble so that I can keep on giving you grace. I want to ask you, my brothers and sisters, which would you rather have? The appreciation of human beings because you boast to them about what all you've done for the Lord or you've taken up to the third heaven or something like that?

Or would you rather have zero approval from men, that men, human beings despise you? But God's grace is upon you every single day. And you have wonderful experiences with God. And he uses you according to his purpose, and nobody knows about it.

Hidden Fellowship With Christ

I believe the best way for God to use me is in a way that nobody knows about it. Why should people know about what God is doing with me? I mean, my relationship with Jesus, I'll tell you honestly, is like a love relationship between a bridegroom and a bride.

And why should you know what I as a bride do for my bridegroom? You know, if someone loves a girl who loves a boy, he doesn't want to advertise to the whole world what gifts she gives him or what she does for him.

No, that's just between her and him. And if you have a love relationship with Jesus Christ, exactly like a girl who's engaged to a boy has with him, if it is exactly like that, you will never want other people to know what you do for your bridegroom.

If you go around advertising it, that proves that you don't have a love relationship with Christ as a bridegroom. Think about it. Our conversations, husband and wife, you don't want other people to hear the loving words you speak to each other.

No, it's entirely private. That's why when I speak in unknown tongues, I never do it in public. Never, never, never. It's a love language between me and my bridegroom, and nobody ever hears it. Just look, if I express something loving to my wife, I don't want you guys to listen to it.

Now, when I say something to the Lord, whether in English or in an unknown tongue, I don't want you to express, you to listen to it. This is the type of relationship that Jesus wants every one of us to have with him.

A private, secret relationship. You know, in the Song of Solomon, it says, my beloved is like a private garden. That's the word used in the Song of Solomon. A private garden exclusively for me. I go into that garden, and I take the fruit of that garden, the bridegroom says, just for me.

That's the type of relationship, the best type of relationship that any Christian can have with Jesus Christ. Read the Song of Solomon. That's the type of relationship Paul had. So, all these dealings that he had were to humble him, so that he and the Lord could have such a close, intimate relationship, like husband and wife, like bride and bridegroom.

I want to ask you, do you have that type of relationship? It is God's will that every single one of you who's born again should have that type of relationship. But you can't have that if you're proud, because God resists the proud.

And he doesn't want to resist you if you're his bride. But he'll have to resist you, because that's his law. He resists the proud. So, when Paul recognized this, he stopped praying. He said, that's fine, Lord.

Let my eyes keep leaking. I will not pray that I should be healed, because it humbles me. This sickness humbles me. And so, the Lord said to him in verse 9, my grace is sufficient for you, because my power is made perfect in your weakness.

It's a fantastic statement that you need to understand, every one of you. God's grace is equal to his power. Power is another word. God's grace is another word for God's power. You read that in that verse.

My grace is enough for you, because my power, that is my grace, is made perfect, works perfectly in when you're weak. When you're strong, it will not work perfectly. I have to make you weak before I can accomplish my purpose through you and manifest my power through you.

And that's a great secret, which many Christians have not understood. I'm very thankful that God revealed that to me when I was a very young Christian. I was born again when I was 19 and a half, way back in 60 years ago.

The Baptism of Jesus and Death to Self

And I started studying the scriptures, but I found a great lack of power in my life. And I used to go to an assembly that never preached about the power of the Holy Spirit or the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

But as I read the scriptures and I read the testimonies of some godly men, I found these men had an encounter with God where the mighty power of God came upon them. They were filled with the Holy Spirit.

And so I began to see God as a young, 23-year-old young man when I was still working in the Navy. I said, Lord, I want this power in my life. I want this baptism of immersion in the Holy Spirit, the power of God.

And so as I studied the scripture, I was led to the passage where Jesus received the Holy Spirit coming upon him. You know, that was at the baptism of John, when John the Baptist immersed Jesus in the river Jordan.

As he came up, the Holy Spirit came upon him like a dove. And his whole ministry was changed after that. You know, from that moment up till that moment, Jesus had never preached a sermon. He had never cast out a demon.

He never healed a sick person. But from that moment, everything changed. He began to cast out demons and he began to heal the sick and he began to preach powerfully. The Holy Spirit came upon him and I saw that even for Jesus Christ, for 30 years what he could not do, not could not do, God did not allow him to do it, came all of a sudden.

It started when he was anointed with the Holy Spirit. And I said, Lord, that's what I need. That's what I need in my life, the anointing, the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, so that I can speak God's word prophetically, so that I can speak God's word almost without effort, like the way Jesus spoke.

It comes through the anointing of the Holy Spirit. But then the Lord showed me something else there, which I never read anywhere else. God opened my eyes to see. As it were, the Lord was asking me, when did Jesus get this power?

It's when he allowed John the Baptist to immerse him in the water, bury him completely, and lift him up. That's when the power of God came upon him. And I understood as I meditated on it, that Jesus symbolically was accepting death to his own self.

I'm willing to die to my will. You know, he prayed in Gethsemane, not my will but thine be done. He was willing to die to his will. In fact, in John 6 38, it says, I came from heaven never to do my own will, but to do the will of my Father.

So, in the river, he was symbolically accepting death to his own will, allowing other people to push him down, allowing other people to humiliate him, hurt him, kill him, put him right down, believing that the Father would raise him up.

That's the meaning of baptism. And that's why baby's baptism does not picture that. You sprinkle some water on the head, that's not baptism. Jesus was saying, I accept death to myself, and the Father will raise me up.

And from that, as I meditated on it, the Lord showed to me, you're seeking for the power of the Holy Spirit? Well, here's the secret. You have to be willing to be pushed down. You allow, let me allow people to push you down.

Like John the Baptist pushed Jesus down. And Jesus didn't resist it. And you don't resist it. When people speak evil of you, when people accuse you falsely, when people push you down in one way or the other, just accept it.

Believing, the Lord says that I will raise you up. You know that the Bible says that it was the Father who raised up Jesus from the dead? Nowhere in the Bible does it say Jesus raised himself. Jesus gave himself to go to the cross.

That he did. He told the Roman soldiers, you come take me, I'm he, I'm Jesus, take me. But he never raised himself. The Father raised him from the dead. He allowed John the Baptist to put him down. John the Baptist raised him up.

So symbolically, he was saying, I will allow people to humiliate me, hurt me, kill me. I know the Father will raise me up. There, when he submitted himself like that, the Holy Spirit came upon him. And what the Lord said to me from that passage was, if you are willing to go that way of death to your self-life, if you're willing to let people humiliate you, hurt you, accuse you falsely, do all types of things, and you accept it without complaint, and you keep your mouth shut, and let people do all that, you believing, the Lord says that I will raise you up.

You will have my power all the days of your life. But the Lord said, the day you feel that you have graduated from that way, and you don't have to walk that way anymore, my power will depart from you.

I have feared that. I said, Lord, I never want your power to depart from me. I choose that way, and I'll go that way all the days of my life. And I can say before God, even today, I seek to choose that way of death to myself when people tell false stories about me or accuse me.