Posts Tagged ‘pride’

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5 Ways to Avoid Pride

Monday, February 2nd, 2015

how-to-avoid-pride

I’ve been asking God how to avoid pride. People are shocked when I tell them that I have prayed that God would make me humble. I have actually taken precautions to avoid falling into the pit of pride, the worst and ugliest sin of Satan that caused him to be thrown out of heaven.

5 Ways to Avoid Pride:

1. Humble yourself before the Lord.

When we bow before the Lord and lean on Him for strength and wisdom, we are less likely to take credit for what God has done. Remember that God is everything and we are nothing. Apart from Him we can do nothing. (John 15:5) In Him we live and breathe and have our being. (Acts 17:28) If we humble ourselves, God won’t have to humble us. When we are not humble, we can’t hear Him anyway, so we want Him to humble us if we can’t humble ourselves.

2. Ask other believers to keep you accountable.

Everyone should have friends in their lives who love them for who they are. If you don’t have friends like this, ask the Lord to grant you at least one. When people believe the best in you, their rebukes are gentle, or if the rebukes are harsh, you can handle it because you know that they love you and that they don’t want you to sin. As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)

3. Realize that you have been given the very thing that you are boastful about.

Whatever you feel proud about is not yours. Your gifts and talents have been given to you by God, and even your very breath. If you worked hard, it’s only because He allowed you to do so and gave you a good night’s sleep. Without proper sleep, you would not be able to function. You are nothing. You are but dust. If God used you in a powerful way, you should smash your face in the dust and thank Him, not boast about something you didn’t do. This is especially true about things of the Spirit. If God does something through you, all the glory goes to God.

4. Memorize Scripture that disarms pride. It is your sword.

The book of Proverbs is full of verses about pride: Proverbs 6:17; 11:2; 14:16; 15:25, 15:33; 16:5; 16:18; 16:25; 21:4; 25:6-7; 25:27; 26:12; 27:2; 28:11; 28:25; 29:23; 30:32. Choose a verse that convicts you, and place it on a card on your mirror so you can commit it to memory.

5. Realize that pride is ugly; humility is beautiful.

Anyone who has been hurt by someone else’s pride knows how ugly it is. Pride looks down on other people, whereas humility regards the other person as more important than themselves. I once knew a woman who was so humble that she lifted up everyone around her. She was confident in the Lord, but she never took credit for what the Lord was doing. She would always point out that it was the Lord who deserved the credit for what she had done. I want to be more like that! Lord, grant me humility!

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Rebuttal to a Beth Moore Basher

Sunday, September 16th, 2012

rebuttal-to-a-beth-moore-basherI listened to 16 minutes of this man‘s venom towards Beth Moore. I was going to listen to the whole one-hour show, to see if anything he had to say had validity. But the condescending, contemptuous way he referred to his fellow believer in Christ was sin. If he is sinning, he is not walking by the Spirit. If he is not walking by the Spirit, nothing he has to say is worthwhile, especially if he’s trying to make a spiritual point.

I have no idea if I agree or disagree with the theology of Beth Moore, but no two people on this earth will agree about everything. That doesn’t mean she’s Satan. She’s not. Last January I took her study on the book of James, and it was excellent. I grew spiritually. I saw nothing that was theologically incorrect, and my father is a seminary professor with a doctorate in theology from Dallas Theological Seminary. I’ve had a solid foundation of Scriptural training in the Christian schools that I attended as a missionary kid, and I’ve spent thousands of hours in the Word of God. None of this is boasting. I live with my face smashed in the dust because God is everything and I am nothing. What I’m saying is that Beth Moore wasn’t off in her theology in her study of the book of James, which is the only one I’ve done so far.

The radio show host began by bashing the person who introduced Beth Moore. He paused the man half-sentence and twisted his words. The man (who introduced her) said that his confidence came from God, but the radio show host said that he had his confidence in himself. If the radio show host can’t even hear a clear sentence, his pompous, puffed-up heart has plugged ears from the get-go.

Then he starts reading long reams of Scripture without telling us why. He says that we can’t memorize a Scripture verse without in essence memorizing the whole chapter. This is ludicrous. And, by the way, it’s ironic, because Beth Moore memorized the entire book of James and encouraged each of us women to do the same during the one Bible study I took. Sheez.

He also bashes her as a preacher. For heaven’s sake, she teaches WOMEN. No man can be offended by a woman who teaches women, no matter what you believe is Scriptural. This radio show host was prideful, smug, and critical of someone who has a deep spiritual walk with God and is having a powerful impact on women across the nation, causing the women to repent of sin and draw closer to God. I’m going to pray that this man repents of HIS sin.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Okay, I’ve listened up to the 36-minute mark, which is all that I could stand. He mentions confidence as sin. (Beth Moore said, and I quote, “confidence in God.” She never said her confidence came from outside of God, but that she was discouraged and felt incapacitated for the work that God had called her to do.) I will address this in Part 2: Confidence vs. Self-Esteem.

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Forgetting What’s in the Mirror

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

in-the-mirrorPride blinds us and keeps us from following God. We live in a state of self-deception, thinking that just because we see something in Scripture and agree with it, we’re following it. Especially for people who have followed God a long time, we rest on our past laurels, how God transformed us in the past, not realizing that if God is not transforming us NOW, that we are not really as mature as we think we are. Often new converts are following God more closely than we are, but we show contempt for them because we’ve been past that stage for so long. God wants to soften our hearts so that we will be in a continuous state of yielding to Him. True humility is beautiful.

We don’t want to confess sin to each other for fear of what other people will think of us, even though Scripture commands us to do so. I read a sweet article about a woman being convicted about lying. The automatic reaction of my heart was that I was beyond that, because I don’t struggle with that particular sin. This is the reaction of a prideful person. This is ugly, and God is not pleased. So what if we don’t struggle with that particular sin? We struggle with others, if we are honest with ourselves.

In fact, as believers, when we look like we are sinning and far from God because of a struggle with sin, that’s often when we are drawing closer to God than ever, going through a gargantuan growth spurt in our walk with God. And yet we label these people as immature because they are being honest about their sin.

Let’s take, for example, the time I raged at God over potty training. How ridiculous, says the person who has never gone through that trial. They look down on me, thinking me stupid and trivial. Yet if I told them my rape testimony and how I never raged at God about that, they would clap their hand over their mouth, shocked at God’s glory shining out of my life miraculously through such an event.

So why don’t we have the guts to say what is really going on in our lives, even though it makes us look stupid and immature? Why did I never link to my “Anger and Potty Training” article that I wrote two years ago? Why was I embarrassed by it? That trial transformed me, so that I was able to perform a disgusting task with joy. And God gets all the glory because my behavior looks so yucky. For crying out loud, what gives me the gall to rage at God? Honestly, the anger was already there, and the moment I was honest with God was the moment He changed me. I didn’t want to admit that I was so furious about it. The trial of potty training was put there by God to sanctify me. God was concerned about my reaction to the trial, NOT to the potty training itself.

Because of my obedience to God in posting an extremely embarrassing article (and having to crucify my pride to do it), I’ve gotten e-mails from sweet mothers of small children, thanking me profusely for posting it. Why? Because they felt alone. They knew that their anger over potty training was wrong, but they didn’t know what to do about it. Express your frustration to God. God is NOT surprised. Job ranted at God, and God never rebuked him for it. (I am not saying that it’s godly to rage at God; I’m saying that when you are dealing honestly with God full blast, God will transform you through your pain.) Many people who have lost children have initially shaken their fists at God with rage (because God is in control of the universe and could have prevented it), but then they continue to throw themselves in God’s direction, and God transforms them and draws them closer to Himself. If you look at a snapshot of the person raging, you might look down on them as being spiritually immature when the absolute opposite is happening – a gigantic spiritual growth spurt. Allow people to look ugly for a minute. Grant them that grace. God Himself knows their hearts and grants them this grace, so why shouldn’t we?

We’re commanded to boast about our weaknesses. Why? Because God gets glory. Spiritual growth looks ugly BEFORE the transition to a greater state of holiness.

Wisdom is married to humility. I want to hang around people who are humble and wise. God, grant me the humility to love people for real, and to be honest about my own sin. May I never put my own image before God’s glory.

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Our Actual Value in Christ

Thursday, September 29th, 2011

value-in-christWe are born into sin, and there is nothing inherently in us that has any value whatsoever. I’m sick of people saying that we have value, and that’s why Christ died for us. It’s the opposite. We were helpless in our sin; we couldn’t help but sin; we are all selfish pigs. All of us deserve hell. No one deserves heaven. If we had any idea how horrendous even the slightest sin is to God, we would get a grip and fall on our faces in the dust. God is holy. We are not. Look at the impossible chasm.

It’s because of God’s mercy that He chooses us and gives us faith so that we can love Him back. We can’t even take credit for the faith, because that is a gift from God. It’s the transformation that gives us worth. At salvation we become a new creation; that new creation has infinite value. We now have worth because of Christ.

Many people have the erroneous view that we continue to be rotten sinners after salvation. Not so. Scripture says we are saints. Our flesh causes us to sin against our will (Romans 7:15-24). The core of our being is now good, not only because Christ is there, but because He has changed us to reflect Him in a way that nobody else can. In heaven as well as here on earth, people will be able to get to know God because of what He has done in our lives. That’s why testimonies are so powerful. I’m not talking only about conversion. I’m talking about how God is in a continuous process of changing us. For example, I used to be ruled by anger, and now I’m not. God has broken the chains. Each Christian should have ten or twenty testimonies of how God has miraculously changed them. If you’re not growing, you’re not reflecting Christ, and you’re missing out on a lot of joy. Seeing the impossible is so incredible. The Spirit of God brings the fruit of the Spirit, and you don’t even have to work for it except to yield to God and obey to the best of your ability. God will do the rest.

Many people believe in a Christ-filter. They believe that after conversion, they are still filthy sinners, and that God looks at us through Christ, and He doesn’t see our sin because of His propitiation for us. Basically, they are saying that only Christ is in heaven, because everyone else is rotten and God can only look at Christ. But this is not true. Christ has transformed us to be holy. I myself am holy because Christ made me holy at the moment of salvation.

The first time I heard about my true value in Christ, I was floored. For years as a teenager, I had struggled with depression and wanted to die. It wasn’t until my now-husband Alan opened the Word of God to me and expounded His Word for three hours from Romans 6, 7 and 8 that I finally understood and felt clean. I wanted to shout from the rooftop that we don’t have to wallow in sin. We are a new creation that is holy and wants so desperately to do what is right. The first question Alan asked me was, “Do you desire to please God in the deepest core of your being?” I said, “Yes.” “Do you realize that it’s only the flesh, the world, and Satan that cause you to sin? When you die, all three fall away, and you are ready for heaven without sin. This is the truth.”

I couldn’t believe it. I had to see it with my own eyes. After Alan dropped me off at my house, I ran to my bedroom, opened my Bible, and wept. To this day, I still have tiny notes all over my Bible. I discovered that I was free from the power of sin. I sin not because I want to, but because of my flesh, and I have the power to gain victory over the flesh. I didn’t have to feel like a piece of dirt any more. I had a way to reflect Christ that was beautiful and unique. I finally understood my worth in Christ, and I was free.

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