" 'Satan is a king over all 'the children of pride,' says the Bible. Unsaved humanity is a mirror image of their father the devil and he is the reigning authority over all his children.
"Pride courses through their veins and because of that pride, there is this ungrateful response to the things of God. They're not thankful.
"Satan has this proudful ambition to usurp what is rightfully God's; what belongs rightfully to the Creator, and ever since Genesis 3, unsaved humanity falls right into the lap of that prideful desire to achieve, to ascend, to make a name for one's self. Did he not offer to Eve, 'Ye shall be as gods'? He's saying to her, 'You see, you don't have to be inferior, you don't have to play second fiddle; you deserve better.'
"The same individuals who are lifted up in self-adoration, self-love (Paul says they are lovers of their own selves), they're boasters, a bunch of braggarts. They're haughty, and not only that, they're proud.
"When you study what pride is, and surely we could go to a dictionary, pride simply is a preoccupation with self. There is this excessive desire to be the attention, to be appreciated and adored. There's this unhealthy desire to be admired by others.
"When you find pride in the Bible, you find this lustful desire to be the center of attention. What often happens as a result is you will see a proudful person begin to look at others with contempt. That haughty spirit of puffed up arrogance will lead one to begin to look down on others. There is this false sense of conceited superiority that leads toward looking at others as being inferior.
"Pride, by Bible definition, is extremely deadly, extremely dangerous, and there is this link between pride and unthankfulness. In Romans 1, right off the bat, as the Apostle Paul indicts humanity:
[21] Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. [22] Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, when they knew god they glorified him not as God.
"In their attitude of unthankfulness and ingratitude they rely upon their haughty sense of professing wisdom. Notice, neither were they thankful, but they became vain in their imaginations.
"They replaced that spirit of thankfulness. They displaced any gratitude that should have been expressed because of the creative power and wisdom of Almighty God, and what they did is they suppressed any attitude of thanksgiving with vain imaginations.
"II Corinthians 10:5 says, [5] Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
"The idea here is that humanity--they presume, they assume they know what's happening. They assume they know what's going on. They assume they know how man came into existence. They assume they know how God thinks in some ways as well.
"Paul says meekness is the capacity to bring into subjection every thought to the obedience of Christ. It's not so much bringing my thoughts so that I'm always obeying Christ, but rather, just like Jesus Christ in meekness chose to obey His Father. Meekness is not weakness. Rather, it's the ability to restrain power, ability, strength. To restrain one's prerogatives. He chose not to exercise His royal rights and prerogatives as an equal co-member of the godhead. He chose to restrict His divine abilities.
"Jeremiah 49:16: [16] Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill: though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the LORD.
"Pride deceives and convinces you of something that just simply isn't true. It distorts reality. By the way, the idea of vain imaginations--again, Paul, when he talks about the imagination and every high thing, it's talking about prideful understanding and wisdom. So when you think about the deception, it's all imaginary! A proudful person convinces themselves, 'I am right; you're wrong.' Pride convinces that person of things that just simply are not true.
"Psalm 73:6 says, 'Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment.' Pride is bondage; it makes you a slave. it's like a chain of enslavement.
Proverbs 13:10: [10] Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.
Proverbs 16:[5] Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.
[6] By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.
[7] When a man's ways please the LORD, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.
[8] Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right.
[9] A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.
"Proverbs 6:16-17: [16] These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: [17] A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
"By the way, that's No. 1 on the list. The No. 1 abomination is a proud look. When it says a proud look, it's not suggesting that somebody looks proud, or has the appearance of pride. It's talking about a pride-filled person who evaluates and sees everything or everyone as being beneath them, as being inferior; as being unworthy.
"It's not a, 'Look, man, he dresses proudly,' or, 'He looks proud,' but rather it's the way he evaluates, the way he perceives. The proud look is the way he interprets his surroundings. Again, there is that twisted sense of superiority of the one who has the proud look. He views things through the lens of that empty, vain, imaginative, haughty pride that would lift himself in exaltation against the knowledge of God; against what God is saying and against all that God is doing."
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"A friend of mine once told me about what happens on his meditation retreats, where attendees stay silent and engaged in some form of meditation for days on end," writes journalist Anne Helen Petersen.
"At some point, usually a day or so in, most attendees find themselves weeping. Not because they’re suddenly enlightened, but because the experience of spending so much time in an unmediated encounter with one’s self, with no distractions, is terrifyingly intense.
"I’ve heard of similar reactions from long-distance runners, and long-term yoga practitioners, both of which make the body unignorable, the mind inescapable. We say we go on runs or meditate to 'get out of our heads,' but the real effect is to actually burrow deep inside them, to concentrate wholly on the self. For many of us, that experience is so rare that tears are the natural, involuntary result — like seeing a good friend, long neglected, after so many years."*****
The most important thing in a person’s life is what he/she thinks about God and their relationship with/to Him.
“What you understand about God and who you think He is is the most important controlling factor in your life, because what you think and believe is where your life flows out of,” explains Jordan. “God wants you to be reconciled to Him and that’s what the Cross is all about.
“Paul writes in II Corinthians 5:17, ‘Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.’
“You see, God so radically changes your identity when you trust the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn’t just forgive you your sins, make you acceptable to Him, give you His righteousness, accept you in the Beloved. He also does a radical change inside your identity and makes you a NEW creature!
“You became something CREATED in the Lord Jesus Christ and that happens to every one of us, so the connection we have is by being IN Christ.
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“Performance-ism is just another word for legalism. It’s that mindset that equates our identity and our value to our performance and our accomplishments. Your value, your identity in Christ does not come from that.
“That’s the way we do it in life; we get our value, our meaning, our validation, our purpose out of what we accomplish, what we’ve done, how we are performing, and when we find out we’re not performing well enough it's, ‘Well, I’ll try harder!’
"That’s just performance-based acceptance. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit is not performance-ism. It’s not, ‘I’ll perform and therefore get there.’
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“Paul says in Galatians 2:20-21, 20] I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
[21] I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
“What he’s saying there is that, in the Lord Jesus Christ, you see the way God designed man to live . . . when you see that obedience of faith in God’s Word that led to the ultimate sacrifice at Calvary, trusting in the Father’s Word, you see the way He created mankind to live.
"It’s the way He created you and me to matriculate through life today. The challenges, the excitements, the excesses, the necessities of life as we experience them . . .
“The Lord Jesus Christ had that kind of faith in His Father that He would say, ‘Of my own self I can do nothing.’ That’s the choice He made. He said, ‘I value and cherish my Father’s plan so much, I couldn’t even imagine being separated from it.’ You know what that is? That’s ‘the faith of Christ.’
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“He was not out here on a journey doing His own thing. He came to do the will of His Father and that’s what ‘the faith of Christ’ is. It’s HIS faith in the Word and the will of His Father, and that’s what Paul says our life as Believers is designed to be.
“That’s what it is to worship God in the Spirit. That’s what it is to have Christ as our life. These are not religious clichés even though sometimes we use them that way.
"Sometimes we get to trafficking in unfelt truth, but they weren’t for Jesus Christ and if they get that way with you, you need to sit down and look back at Him and see in Him who God designed you to be, because He’s the one living in you.
*****
“In John 14:10, Jesus says to Philip, [10] Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
“Philip doesn’t get it. He says to Christ, ‘We’ve been with you all this time and who you talking about?!’
"You’ve had a bad day like that, haven’t you? You’ve looked up and said, ‘Lord, where in the world are you today?! Don’t you care?! Are you on a trip?! What’s going on?!’
“When you get that way, it’s not because you’re looking at Him. It’s because you’re looking at circumstances; self. It’s not because you’re trusting Him; it’s because you’re trusting your own resources. So don’t get too mad at Philip because you do this.
“Later in the same chapter, Jesus says to Judas, ‘He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me.’
“You see, He was so perfectly abandoned to the will of His Father that the Father dwelt in Him and SPOKE through Him. It was the Father’s wills, words and works.
"What Jesus Christ is doing is demonstrating the supreme, absolute value of the way He cherished His Father and He did it by putting His faith in the Father’s Word, so that the things He did in His life were what the Father gave Him to do.
“He’s in the Garden of Gethsemane praying and He says in John 17:18, ‘[17] Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
[18] As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
“How did Christ come into the world? By faith in the will and the word of His Father. And He said, ‘So send I them into the world.’ The men were sent with the same commission as the Son received from the Father. To go live exactly the way He lived.
"Can I say the same is true of you and me as it was with them. Paul says, ‘[20] Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.
“The realization to make is, ‘I’m here in His place, doing what He’d be doing if He was here. In fact, He is here in me, living His life out through me.’
“That’s why we’re called the Body of Christ. We’re the vehicle through whom He lives and works today. That’s why Paul says, ‘I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’
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“We’re not talking about religion; we’re talking about a RELATIONSHIP with the God of heaven and earth, the Creator. The one who made you originally. The one whom your sins have alienated you from.
"Your self-will has taken you off in a different direction. Paul says, ‘I’m dead to that.’ How? ‘Through Christ. I died with Him. But I didn’t just die with Him; when He put away my sin, He gave me His life.’
“Paul says, ‘A spiritual transaction took place on a supernatural level inside of me, where I received His life and so that the life I now live, I live by the faith of the Son of God. I have His life and it’s Him living in me.’
“The way He does that is when I live in my flesh the way He lived in HIS flesh! How did He live? ‘Without the Father I can do nothing. The works I do, the words I speak, are the ones the Father gave me,’ and I just put my faith in the Father and I’m living the life He gave me.
“So how does Christ live in me? He lives in my flesh the way He lived in His own flesh, 2,000 years ago and faith is just the issue of depending. Whatever you depend on is going to control you.
“The Lord Jesus Christ, my friend, is most magnified, most exalted, when we’re satisfied in life with Him and He’s enough. All the other stuff, even if we lose everything else, we’ve got Him and we’re still ahead.
“Paul said, ‘For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.’ To live is to know Christ and to die is gain because now I just get more intimacy with Him. I’ve heard that word defined ‘in-to-me-see.’ That’s really what it is.
“More and more there’s the ability to see into Him, and Him to see into me, the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. In your life, when He is preferred above everything else, that’s how He’s cherished and demonstrated to be the treasure.
“When we’re satisfied with Christ, when we’re prizing Him, cherishing Him, treasuring Him as a prize, and His gain is our heart’s delight above all else, that’s what Paul means in Philippians 3:9 when he says, ‘[9] And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:
[10] That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;
*****
“You notice ‘and be found in him,’ how that’s a passive voice? I’ve come to love the passives. The essence of life is not DOING! The essence of the Christian life is BEING, not doing! It’s who you are, not what you do.
“It’s who God has made you in His Son, and when that becomes the focus of your life, and you learn to just relax and enjoy life in the identity God has given you in Christ, rather than trying to do things and look over your shoulders and see if God’s happy with you, you’ll find yourself doing plenty. But it won’t be to gain something from God; it’ll just be because that’s who you ARE and that’s who people who ARE this, that’s the way they live.
“When I had cancer several years ago, someone sent me an email saying, ‘You’ll never know if Christ is all you need until he’s all that you have and when He’s all that you have, then and only then, do you discover that Jesus is really all that you need.’
“If you don’t count all that you can do ‘but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ’ . . . if you’ve never come to that point in your life and you’re still trusting something of yourself, can I tell you that’s a dead-end road?
“Maybe you haven’t learned that yet, but when you do learn it, can I tell you it’s a dead-end road, and when you really do do what the Psalmist said (‘I came to the end of myself’) can I tell you there’s one standing there at the end of your rope who is the answer.
“You go bloody your nose to learn, ‘It ain’t me.’ Whatever it is you hope to rely upon, whatever it is you hope to cling to, whether it’s in yourself, if you’d be honest enough in your own self to know you can’t trust yourself . . .
“We put the bravado on, but in your heart of hearts you know yourself. We kick at the slats, we don’t like to believe that, but the grace of God is only available when all of our resources are gone. You’ll never do it until you come to the end of yourself.
“Compared to everything else, He is the one who really is the treasure of your life. God help us to let that be the reality. Instead of screaming and hollering that, ‘But I’m going to lose it all,’ just say, ‘You know what, I’m really FINDING the real source of life.’ Paul said, ‘For me, Christ is gain. I just want to be found in Him, not having my own righteousness. That old song says, ‘Oh, how I love Jesus because He first loved me.’ ”
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