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October 7, 2024
- By Ed Powell
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"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud." 1 Corinthians 13:4
Have you ever pondered the various attitudes that relate to pride? Look at them...boastful, vain, self-praising, conceited, arrogant, self-centered, inconsiderate, over-bearing, haughty, self-important, rash, puffed-up, insidious...WOW! What a terrible thing to have pride characterize our life. How destructive, abusive, and vicious it is to anyone's life, but even more in the life of a believer! No wonder these tentacles of pride have such devastating effects.
Pride is taken passively by the world, excusable, easily forgotten, and simply as a matter of course. But how do you think God looks at pride? Solomon said, "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:16). Pride is the deceiving cloak that hides its deathly tentacles. God abhors the proud..."they are an abomination to Him" (Proverbs 3:34). He scorns them and "knows them afar off as objects whom He disdains to look upon" (Psalm 138:6).
Oswald Chambers wrote so graphically regarding pride in the believer: "Pride is the deification of self, and this today in some of us is not the order of the Pharisee, but of the publican. To say, 'Oh, I'm no saint,' is acceptable to human pride, but it is unconscious blasphemy against God. It literally means that you defy God to make you a saint, 'I am much too weak and hopeless.' Humility before men may be unconscious blasphemy before God. Why are you not a saint? It is either that you do not want to be a saint, or that you do not believe God can make you one."
Pride has but one objective...our defeat and destruction empowered by Satan himself. We must recognize that in ourselves we are no match for the enemy of our soul. Weakness and dependence upon God will always be the occasion for the Spirit of God to manifest Himself in our lives. Satan is stronger, wiser, and more cunning than we are. God will not impose Himself on us when we have a proud, boastful, independent attitude that has no time for HIM.
To guard against these destructive elements of pride let us...
Remember what we once were..."Look to the rock whence you were hewn, and to the hole of the pit, whence you were digged" (Isaiah 51:1). When we recall what we were, there can only be humiliation before God, who made us a "new creation" in Him.
Consider what we still are. We still have our "old nature" that ever seeks to gratify the fleshly lusts. We have to daily mortify the "old nature" and appropriate all God has given to us.
Be aware of the deceitfulness of our own hearts. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it" (Jeremiah 17:9).
Guard against the tendency to sin. "Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matthew 26:41).
See the hand of God in it all. Acknowledge your own unworthiness. Adorn your life with a contrite heart and a pure spirit. Recognize your dependence upon God. Be thankful for the grace that has made you what you are. Let your life be a faithful, consistent, and an effective testimony in every phase of your life.
The prosperity of the soul is that which alone is of any eternal value. Keep your eyes fixed on our Lord Jesus Christ, responsive to all HE wants to do in your life!
© 2007 by Ed Powell. Used by permission.
This page was reprinted by permission from: http://litmin.org/dare.php?date=2024-10-07&print=1
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