Pride keeps us, when God has released us.

It has a unique way of holding us in a position that offers esteem when Christ is calling us to that which is still unseen.  Pride, coupled with fear, will often cause us to stay when Christ calls us to go.

When God calls us onward, pride whispers, “If you leave you’ll forfeit your position.” In all reality, we then lean on our own understanding and the enemy’s voice wins our affections.

For when we go “low” and we “decrease” we find God begins to open doors of supernatural caliber. We will have to silence the voice of PRIDE… willing to lay down all “potential” and worldly accolades to move into the work Christ has appointed to us.  Often, it appears we are losing….but we are actually gaining. The enemy will focus you on “what seems like loss” but the Holy Spirit will urge you to look to the coming “expansion.” When our hands are emptied of our self indulgences and works of the flesh, He fills them with His heart for us and that which He is pressing us into.  Great joy will emerge from this appointed place.

Pride overrules the call to honor others and who Christ is in them. We exalt ourselves and dismiss the word of the Lord to think of others first. Pride allures us to hide others when His heart is to lift them up higher offering platforms otherwise not given and, as such, becoming a champion for the work of Jesus in the brethren. Pride shines the light on ourselves and taunts us with a competitive spirit afraid of offering applause for others in fear of losing our place in the Kingdom. Yet our “lane” is marked with our name alone and there is no danger of losing it to another. We must be secure in this with Christ or pride will always challenge our ability to shepherd well others with integrity and purity of heart. We will seek to keep others “below us ” or under an “illegitimate authority.” A spirit of jealousy will find a home in this place in our hearts when not yielded to the Lord and His gentle heart.

Pride resists any need for repentance. Human reasoning delights at the whispers of pride assuring oneself of our own innocence as The Spirit of God pokes and prods us towards the holy call of humility. Tempting tongue flattery wraps itself in pride all the while secretly working with the tactics of the enemy. We then become a partner in crime with the principalities where rebellion is as witchcraft and we remain a vexed man or woman until we can see clearly our own hearts. Confession before a Holy God allows a piercing light to break up fallow ground rooted in impurities and false piety. Tears will water such a harsh ground and the Spirit of God consumes at once pride that has become at home in our hearts.

Pride offers a false strength in the presence of weakness. Therefore, human skill resumes in the driver’s seat offering us a plate full of the “lesser things” and we eat gladly. What we fail to realize is that the “more” Christ offers us will come in our moment of human weakness to which is the recipe that draws the Spirit of Christ in power and strength. For we can do nothing without Him. As He takes our prideful hearts to the lowest of possible places, we begin to see the beauty of nothingness in His hands and how He molds the softened vessel once broken into a million pieces. Tis’ this pain that proves priceless…

Pride is rejected by Jesus in any form and sends a wretched stench to His heart that He will then oppose. Haughtiness and pride are traits that draw Christ to war for they position mankind as gods themselves and He is fiercely and jealously the Lion of Judah. He shall not be mocked.  Nor shall there still be any gods before Him. This includes the god of self.

What a difficult thing Pride is. It seems to mask itself in all manners of subtleties within the human heart, requiring deep surgeries by the Master physician whose eyes are keen to the thing.  His gaze could burst into flames if not for His mercy and compassion upon His people.

It would serve us well to offer this thing called Pride to the Lord upon daily entry into the secret place, that we may willingly offer it to Him, begging Him to remove all traces of it, before He sees the need to remove it by force.

…As the Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but favors the humble.”

 

May 25, 2018