How to Overcome Pride and Reach Perfection

So if we want the top of our building to be perfect and to rise up pleasing to God, we should try to lay its foundations not according to what our own cravings desire, but according to the rules of the strictness of the gospel. These foundations can only be the fear of God and humility, coming from kindness and simplicity of heart. But humility cannot possibly be gained without giving up everything. As long as a man is a stranger to this, he cannot possibly reach the virtue of obedience, or the strength of patience, or the calm of kindness, or the perfection of love; and without these our hearts cannot possibly be a dwelling for the Holy Spirit. As the Lord says through the prophet: “On whom will my Spirit rest, but on the one who is humble and quiet and hears my words?” Or, according to those copies that render the Hebrew accurately: “To whom will I look, but to the one who is poor and little and of a crushed spirit, and who trembles at my words?” [a]