Date Posted: 11/27/2012 4:53:23 AM
Posted By: fly1234 Membership Level: Bronze Total Points: 15
God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.(James 4:6)C.S. Lewis called pride a "spiritual cancer" that devours love and contentment. Pride is a sign of our own insecurity and feelings of inferiority. Pride and inferiority are actually opposite sides of the same coin and are both sin, a preoccupation with self that leaves little room for God''s spirit of humility.Pride steps between God and you. To think that God stands in opposition against prideful people is a strong and sobering statement that should send us all running to the place of humility. Because He is a loving God, he detests pride because of what it does to his children. In proverbs 16:18-19, it says, "Pride will destroy a person; a proud attitude leads to ruin. It is better to be humble and be with those who suffer than to share stolen property with the proud". For one to grow spiritually, he needs to deal with pride to eliminate it completely.Pride prevents one from seeing others as God sees them. Pride will scare away the humble spirit God wants me and you to have. This is why today cases of failing marriages, broken family relationships and struggling friendships are on the rise. Now, let’s ask ourselves, how can we eliminate pride and prevent it from carving out a destructive stronghold from which relationship problems arise? The answer can be found from the apostle Paul’s message to the church in Rome.Romans 12:3-6;10 "For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves."Paul knows what it means to be proud and what this pride actually does in the life of a christian. Before his encounter with Christ, Paul had been a man of great arrogance. He persecuted the church in his pride. After all, he was a power broker in the Roman government as well as a highly regarded authority and chief persecutor of anyone following Jesus Christ. Little did Paul know what the road to Damascus held for him that day when God interrupted Paul''s life with His blinding love and His unparalleled power.Things took a dramatic turn for Paul, he become humble, a walking definition of a true servant. Paul begun to understand that he was a trophy of grace, not of pride. God''s grace was Paul''s starting place and finish line and the very reason Paul was so humble and so powerful. It’s God’s way that in order to be strong we must choose weakness and in order to be first we must be content with last.Grace offers us the riches of God, at the expense of Jesus Christ and His death on the cross. Unless one begins to see this, he cannot be a beneficiary of this grace. So, if you want to be a friend of God, purpose to humble yourself before him and also before fellow beings.
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