Pride is mans worst enemy. It is even worse than the temptations of satan because we are born with both pride and rebellion stemming from the fall of man satan tempts and provokes us in these areas to sin. It is what caused satan himself to be cast out of heaven.
[PRIDE DEFENITION] 1 The feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.
2 consciousness of one’s own dignity. especially proud of a particular quality or skill.
IN SHORT, IT CAN BE THE WORSHIP OF ONE’S OWN SELF. WE ARE OUR OWN GOD. NO ROOM FOR THE REAL GOD.
God cannot bless pride, He must humble it. It gets in the way of a person getting saved and giving their heart to Jesus and walking in His power. God has a fantastic life for you but you must humble yourself and get into the flow of God for your life. One of the Kingdom of God,s secrets is that He works from the inside out, not the outside in. So it is necessary for each one of us to ask the spirit of God into our lives so God can begin to do a work inside of us first and then the outside of our lives life will change. This is why so many religions don’t work because although people are going to church and saying the right things, Christ is not in you. You are trying to get to Him through religion and without a personal relationship with Him. Plants and animals that God has created get their beauty and glory from the inside out. They start from a seed or a baby and all you do is feed them and what God made them will eventually manifest. Trees from a seeded eventually manifest what they are. What was in the seed.
I was in pride for twenty-five years before I got saved. Then in July of 1985, The Holy Spirit visited me at my house. I knelt down in my living room and asked Jesus into my heart and to take my life and forgive me of my sin. The power of God went into my chest and God gave me a new heart. I was instantly converted. I was so excited. I was right with God finally and He was hearing my prayers. Now that Jesus was in me He started working on all my past and healing it. He was working from the inside out. This was my time of visitation.
In this world, people admire mountains and their majestic beauty and wish they could go up there and some do, and some die. But the mountain stands in its pride above the rest of creation, yet it is the most desolate and dangerous place you could possibly go. but we admire it.
The higher climbers go up the mountain. the more he or she must be self-aware in order to survive. They become less aware of the people around them and more aware of their surroundings and their bodies and the cold and where they are putting their feet as they walk up the mountain The higher they go the more dangerous to life. It becomes survival of the fittest and there is less and less you can do for someone else as you try to get to the peak of the mountain.
Once you get to the top of the mountain you will notice that no one lives there. As popular as the mountain is to look at and climb, why doesn’t anyone live at the top? Because you will die up there. There is no food or water and you can’t grow food and you can’t stay up there too long or else the element will kill you. Yet people like to look at it and have pictures of it and take vacations to go see mountains yet they are deadly to humans.
PEOPLE ADMIRE THE PROUD MOUNTAIN YET ON TOP OF IT IS DEATH AND NO ONE CAN LIVE THERE.
Pride in humans is the same thing. Pride is inherently self-centered. We build our own little mountains of our lives for everyone to see. We want people to admire us and give us respect because of our accomplishments or our good looks and how popular we are on the internet. People strive to have the biggest mountain so they can be worshipped. Many become narcissists. The world revolves around them.
The higher human pride goes the more that person is dangerous to other people. They are less helpful, less merciful, more self-admiring, more hateful, and jealous of others with who they may be competing with. They become like death to those around them because the narcissist sucks the life and energy out of that person as the mountain does to a human. They become less useful to people because they are so busy building their own proud life that no one wants to be around them to be drained by them. To go to the top of their mountain is both physically and spiritually draining yet like the mountain they want to be seen by men to build their egos.
People who are famous and well known by the world are generally not able to mix with the general public. We know them but they cannot help us in our day-to-day lives.
IN HUMILITY IS WHERE PEOPLE FLOURISH.
Water is one of the key elements of life on this earth. Water in its natural state is humble figuratively because it always chooses the lowest parts of the earth. You can find water in wells and deep caves and water always finds the lowest parts to stay in. Water stays in the valleys and flat land where people can live and grow food and build houses. Where people can flourish. Yet compared to the mountain where no one can live it looks common. But it is where people can live. The mountain’s pride can be death though we all see it. The waters humility is life though we look at it as common.
Jesus was the most humble man that ever walked the earth. God came as a man to show us the heart of the Father towards us and to complete the covenant that God started with Abraham and Moses. Jesus died for us while we were in this pride and sin and His blood that God will now accept on your behalf if you will make Christ your lord. God, Himself came as a man and took the abuse from His own creation in order to save them. He could have wiped out the earth with one word and started over if He wanted to but He wanted to show us the love and humility that God Himself has.
When God made us He wrote a book about our lives in heaven that angels are to read and study in order to carry out God’s will in each one of our lives to help us get there. It takes our cooperation with Him to submit to Christ and get saved so He can begin to show us what he has for us.
Character is everything to God. Without good character, you cannot handle the increase in your life. We will abuse it. How many times have you seen or maybe you are one of them that a person is promoted at work to a supervisor let’s, say and then they get arrogant and bossy and show favoritism? This shows that their character cannot handle the job. Even if they know the job and understand how the management job works, their character cannot handle it. They abuse it.
PRIDE DESTROYS CHARACTER AND DOES NOT LET IT DEVELOP BECAUSE THE ONE IN PRIDE IS FULL OF THEMSELVES AND DILUSIONEL AND UNTEACHABLE. THEY ARE THEIR OWN DRY DESOLATE MOUNTAIN NO ONE CAN LIVE WITH OR LEARN FROM. CONDESCENDING, UNAPPROACHABLE AND THINKS THEY ARE BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE.
Humility understands authority, it understands its place. It understands God’s Love. It has a realistic view of self and acts in the truth so that others are not hurt by the lie and that person remains teachable and can grow in life. Life can flourish with humility. Wars are started by pride and millions die. Pride can also start wars in a family or marriage. It becomes a desolate mountain no one can live on.
CEOs and business owners and factory workers and good-looking people and people with great bodies and very intelligent people can all still be humble in their vocation.
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, YOUR JOB IS NOT YOUR IDENTITY. THEY ARE THE GIFTS THAT GOD HAS GIVEN YOU TO DEVELOP ON THE EARTH TO MAKE A LIVING AND SERVE OTHERS WITH AND WHEN YOU DIE YOU WILL GIVE THESE GIFTS BACK TO GOD AND HE WILL MEASURE WHAT YOU DID WITH THEM AND SEE IF YOU GAVE HIM GLORY FOR WHAT HE HAS GIVEN YOU. YOUR FAITHFULNESS TO HIM AND UNDERSTANDING THAT IT ALL COMES FROM HIM. YOU WILL THEN RECEIVE REWARD AND PROMOTION IN HEAVEN.
For those of us believers, God is working on our character to make us clean vessels to be able to carry God’s anointing on the earth. Jesus said that you cannot put new wine into old wineskins or the skins will burst. but must put new wine into new wineskins and both are preserved. This means first we have the born-again life with the Spirit of God living in us. This is the new wineskin. Before we are saved in our sinful state we cannot carry the holy anointing in a sinful unredeemed body. This is the old wineskin that would not be able to handle God’s power and holiness.
Believers do go through tests that God will allow to develop our character to handle God’s anointing. Once we have received Jesus He begins to deliver us of our past. He has already forgiven us of all of our past sins but now He deals with habits and strongholds to make us ready. He is getting us ready to walk in love, The end result of building our character like Christs.
It takes humility to walk in love yet it is God’s ultimate power against this world and defeats satan in his trax. Pride cannot know love because it is self-centered and has only self to look to for strength. It is the opposite of love. So pride keeps us from God. Love is a very powerful weapon. It repels the arrows of satans attacks, like hate, gossip, jealousy, bitterness, and all the sins of the flesh. Love stops a person from giving back to the offender what he or she is giving you. We don’t return hate for hate or gossip for gossip or greed for greed. This stops satan because he cannot duplicate himself by getting someone else to be the same way as the offender. Love has that power and it stops the offender in his trax. The devil that motivated that person to attack doesn’t know how to handle the nonretaliation. Love is power because when we do it in Christ because that’s the way He wants us to act, we then have the backing of God Himself to take and deal with this offender His way.
I have seen it multiple times. God does not put up with people attacking His children who have given their lives to Jesus. I have seen people change as a result of treating them with respect and love. Some getting saved. Others have died from their attacks on me. Some wanted to be my enemy just because of my stand for Christ when they would attack me or when I gave them a word from the Lord and rejected it, bad things would happen to them, and some even got fired. Many got severely sick. God fights the battle of His Kids.
One time I was talking to a young man who was a churchgoer in the cafeteria one time and I saw he was reading a book. I asked him what it was and he told me it was a book on vampires. It was when the vampire movies were coming out in Hollywood at the time and popular.
I said to him, ” Why are you reading that satanic garbage when you know better and have heard God’s word about stuff like this”? He argued, NO it’s really good! I said you are inviting the satanic realm into your house by putting this stuff in your mind and heart. You are the covering for your family by God. Your family will be vulnerable to the attacks if you open this door to them. He would not listen. Then I didn’t see him for 2 days. And then and when I saw him again I asked him, “where have you been, haven’t seen you in a while. He said that they had to take his baby daughter to the emergency room for medical attention for a bat bight. He said a bat crawled into his daughter’s crib and bit her and they had to rush her to the emergency room.
I am not making this up! His pride and stubbornness would not listen to good counsel. God has to take His hands off because of this guy’s own free will.
A guy I know would always reject the gospel because he had tons of pride and a good job and was self- sufficient. He kept resisting the gospel and mocking God and he wound up marrying a woman who was a practicing witch. He did not know it. He found out that this woman has a history of marrying men for under ten years and then divorcing them to legally get all she can from the guy. She did this to this guy I know and cost him thousands for years and almost got his house.
One night he was in bed and there were suddenly 6 Demons standing up against the wall in his bedroom. Scared him bad! Bad enough not to tell any of his family about it but, when I showed up one day to visit he confided in me and told me the whole story. After this happened, he threw away his mattress one day and as he lifted it up off the box spring, there was a satanic symbol laid out on the box spring right under where he slept. His ex-wife had put it there some time ago and he was not aware of it. He also told me of a time he was sitting in his recliner and a demonic spirit held him down in the chair and would not release him. He struggled and physically resisted it and even threatened it and eventually it released him. In his pride and resistance to Jesus pleading with him to get saved, He was more susceptible to satanic attacks. His pride cost him his great job he had for 30 years. He went through some very hard times that wouldn’t have had to happen if he would have just received Christ or at least not mocked Him.
He has not received Christ yet but he is a lot more humble than he was a few years ago. I continue to lift him up in prayer to God and wait for the day that he meets Jesus and is saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. He is much happier now than he was in his proud demeanor. When you say No to God you are saying yes to satan and his fallen kingdom. There is no in-between. You are then on your own until you get sick of being in charge of your own life and humbling yourself and letting the one who created you and the life you have, take it and show you what He can do with you. He will give you a new heart and begin to move you into the supernatural life as you obey Him. He does not force you but leads you and then lets you make the decision to follow Him, the one true leader and God who loves you unconditionally.
GOD TAKES CARE OF HIS OWN.
For some years I was a groundskeeper for Smithfield company. A huge meat packing and processing plant. I had many duties. Lawn mowing, snow removal, dirt work, emergency response team etc.. I started getting dreams from God that someone was trying to steal my job. At first, I didn’t know what to think about it. Then I got another dream with the same message. Someone was trying to steal my job. In the dream, I would always see the front of the plant. Then my pastor’s wife called me up and said that God showed her that someone was trying to steal my job. I said ya, I have been getting warning dreams about it.
Then I went to work and saw some of the bushes trimmed that were not done by me. Then it happened again another day. Then this guy came up to me and said he talked to HR and asked them if he could get some extra hours after work trimming bushes. He said he used to work for a landscape company in Kansas City at one time. So now I saw who it was that was trying to steal my job. I handed the problem to the Lord and asked Him to deal with it because I was in no position to because HR had given him permission. I stayed calm and in the spirit and trust God to deal with it. I could have made things worse if I had blown my temper. This was walking in love and treating him as I would want to be treated. When I decided to walk in love, that opened the door for God to move on my behalf. I had more power than the devil operating in this man.
Then suddenly this guy was gone. He wasn’t coming to work. Then after weeks, he returned to work and he was in such bad shape I had to take the company truck out to him and put some gas in his car so he could get to work. He ran out of gas on his way to work. I asked where he had been and he said something fell on him at home and he was injured. Shortly after that he was fired and escorted out the door with 3 supervisors.
GOD FOUGHT MY BATTLE BECAUSE I DID IT HIS WAY.
LOVE ACCEPTS, PRIDE REJECTS.
Jesus said, ” seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.” [MATTHEW 6:33]
Get humble and start receiving from God by first receiving His Son. He is the connection that will bring you into God’s presence. God is love. God is full of power. They go together.
LOVE IS AN ACTION NOT A FEELING!
[1 CORINTHIANS 13:4]
Love is patient, Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, It is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects always trusts, always hopes, always persevers. Love never fails!