Pride Archives

Seek Jesus

Seek Jesus with all of your heart, mind, body and strength. If you know Him, make your relationship more intimate with daily prayer and study of your Bible. And when I mention prayer and study, I mean fervently doing both.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.–1Thessalonians 5:16-18

Seek Jesus the first thing you do upon waking. Set aside at least fifteen minutes in the morning where you go into a designated area of your house and spend time reading and meditating the Word of God.

At work, devote the first five to ten minutes of your lunch break with prayers of thanks and praise.Seek Jesus with your family before your evening meal. Before retiring to sleep, go to your designated area or gather the family to offer prayers of gratitude to the LORD.

Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!–1 Chronicles 16:11 (English Standard Version)

Even if you awake during the night, pray for protection of your family from the powers of darkness as you seek Jesus. Pray for God to destroy Satan’s plans against you, family, friends and even your enemies.

God shall arise, his enemies shall be scattered; and those who hate him shall flee before him! As smoke is driven away, so you shall drive them away; as wax melts before fire, so the wicked shall perish before God! But the righteous shall be glad; they shall exult before God; they shall be jubilant with joy!–Psalm 68:1-3 (ESV)

Night is when evil celebrates. The disciples of Satan gather for their pagan rituals, offering up demonic prayers for our destruction.

Never forget that we are in spiritual warfare and the devil hates you because of your faith in Jesus. The devil is the enemy and he only comes to steal, kill and destroy( John 10:10).

Therefore, the world hates you. Why does the world hate Christians? It hates us because it is of their father , the evil one. So it should not surprise you regarding the level of evil reigning not only in America , but globally.

Prayer takes us out of the world and into the presence of the Father , the Son and the Holy Spirit. In our communication with God, we become more familiar to His voice and direction.

If you do not know Jesus as Lord and Savior, I would encourage you to stop reading and ask Him to lead your life. Confess and repent of your sins in thought, word and deed. It really is as simple as that.

The truth is, if you are not spiritually marked with the blood of Jesus, then you are a child of the evil one. That should frighten you because you are God’s enemy and your continuation on this path will lead you straight to hell.

For we were created to worship. If you are not seeking God and His will, then , by default, you are worshipping the devil.

Perhaps you are saying, there are many good people in the world, who do charitable deeds and represent virtuous causes. The truth is there is no one good in the world. Their displays of benevolence are only filthy rags to God.

Without God, virtue lifts up the giver, not the receiver. That’s pride, and isn’t that all you hear about in the world?

God hates pride. He despises haughty eyes and a proud spirit. We are never more like Satan than when we think too highly of our selves, and react with hatred to any perceived slight or offense.

Consider also, the world devotes all of its energy into keeping you from surrendering your life to Jesus.The world will distract you , tempt you , shame you , guilt you , scare you, hate you and even kill you to keep you in bondage.

However, the truth sets you free. Most importantly, the Holy Spirit reveals how powerless you are and how desperately you need Christ.

This level of humility , is when you no longer the darkness of the world. You become a light in a world of darkness and begin to understand why those in darkness hate the light. For light exposes their evil deeds, revealing their actions to their minds and conscience.

Seek Jesus while we still can.

Could God ignore your prayers?

Could God ignore your prayers for others or the country? Could He even make it His mission to oppose your plans?

All it takes is pride to become God’s adversary. Why? God hates pride.

The type of pride we’re talking is not that of job well done or of others. No , the pride that separates us from our Heavenly Father is thinking too highly of ourselves above all others.

The danger for Christians is puffed-up thinking because of one’s position in Christ, or spiritual gifts they’ve been blessed with. This is represented in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18:9-14 (New International Version):

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: ¹⁰“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. ¹²I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

¹³“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

¹⁴“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Note the last verse: “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” This means God will humble any believer who exalts himself and lift up the humble person who has a truthful view of himself.

Few churches teach that God could ignore your prayers and literally war with you because of pride. Just read James 4:6 (NIV):

“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”

C.S. Lewis said of pride :

“According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.”¹

Why does pride lead “to ever other vice?” Pride says my needs come first and therefore elevates me above everyone, including people and God.

We are emulating the devil with haughty eyes and a proud heart (Proverbs 21:4-24). Instead of reflecting God’s light, the devil darkens us. This is the reason “pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16-18).

The opposite of pride is humility, and we must humble ourselves, as Jesus did, to be children of God. This means becoming a servant to others instead of expecting others to serve you. In other words, placing the needs of others above your own. Isn’t that what Jesus did when He walked the earth?

Humility is confessing your sins and repenting to the LORD, asking God every day to make you more like Jesus , and asking God to answer prayer according to His will. When we humble ourselves in this manner, we can have confidence God hears our prayers for family, friends, country, enemies and ourselves.

Seek humility as if your life depends on it, because it does. Do not conform yourself any longer to this world with exalts pride as virtue. God promises to lift us up in due time when we come to Him with brokenness. He offers only resistance to those arrogant in their own eyes.

¹ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001) 121-122