Stark Truth or Comforting Lies?

Ephesians 4:15 " Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ."

Hebrews 6:18 - "So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie."

Proverbs 11:3 - "Honesty guides good people; dishonesty destroys treacherous people."

Proverbs 12:5 - "The plans of the righteous are just, but the advice of the wicked is deceitful."

Beloved, what is your perspective on truth? Do you really know what TRUTH is (the actual state of a matter)?  Are you a person who seeks, says, lives and deals with things truthfully, stating them as they truly are? OR are you a person who is quite content with the truth being shaded as long as it’s acceptable and in the vicinity of what is true? I have found few believe there is a need for stark truth when the comfort of lies is available.  Most of us will and do lie often. We lie most often to ourselves first, God secondly and lastly we will lie to others.

For a lie to be given life it must first be conceived with pride as its father, and deceit as its mother. Pride is at is best description faith above God in one’s self. And, pride refuses to acknowledge another’s need to be told the truth over it (prides) own need to conceal it. Deceit is the action or practice of deceiving someone by concealing or misrepresenting the truth and is the land of lying most of us reside in.  We dance artfully around truth by covering it up because we think the better benefit is the lie. We will disguise a lie in flattery and flowery words or just outright say what is isn’t… and justify that by “they cannot handle the truth,” when if we spent a little more time practicing telling the truth in love we could be honest and still be peaceful and avoid being rude, hurtful or disagreeable. 

We need truth like the air we breathe. Truth is light and things that are beautiful grow best in light.  God is truth and because in Him we live and move and have our being…we suffer tremendously and wound ourselves skillfully when we refuse to be TRUTHFUL. God does not bless lies. He will actually uncover and expose lies eventually if not immediately. Lies have a short shelf life. Truth lives forever. Take a truth test this week over everything you think, say, do. ASK…is this TRUE?  Then, tally how much of your life is real and truthful or how much of your thoughts, words, actions, your very life— is lost in lies. This is a very sobering personal growth act of discipline, but is sorely needed in our society today. Truth telling people are as hard to find as is anyone who knows how to love well.

Beloved, I am praying with and for you.

Please feel free to forward CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr to friends and colleagues, but please forward in its entirety. CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr is written and distributed by Arete1 International. No portion of this publication may be copied or reproduced without the expressed written consent of Cheryl L. Carr. Copyright 2012 Cheryl Carr and ARETE1 International. 2012 rightwordsbycheryl© Follow me on Facebook : Cheryl Carr and Arete1. Follow me on twitter: Arete1Int.

TESTED CONSISTENCY

 
Proverbs 20:6- Many people declare themselves loyal, but who can find someone who is [really] trustworthy?

James 1:6-8  But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavers is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways

Psalm 26:2  Put me on trial, LORD, and cross-examine me. Test my motives and my heart.

1Corinthians 10:12  So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!

 

          Who are you are when no one is around? Who are you when you’re separated from those who KNOW you and around people who know nothing about you but that you that you present? What is it that you want people to think of you when if it were uncovered and presented as is…it’s not true? The distance in consistency and trustworthiness under those conditions and in those circumstances are indicative of who and what you really are as a person, in character and in conduct. Have you ever examined yourself to see WHO AM I? Have you ever placed who you are before God and asked Him to test your consistency and trustworthiness? I ask that because many of us use our own measuring stick for these principles and the word of God tells us clearly “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” This lets me know only God can tell me who I really am, not other people and surely not my own self. I don’t want to live the unexamined life of fakery and trickery that most seem to aspire no higher to do. I have chosen to live at a higher level and this requires frequent testing to reveal TRUTH.

    Balance in our thinking and truth in our innermost man requires examination. A test…a lying bare so that you can see--- “what is really inside of me?” It is so easy to say “this is me, who I am” and then declare what we will or won’t do/are capable of. It’s a far different matter to be proven, tested and tried to see what truly holds out about you in what you say and what you do. Consistency is the condition of cohering or holding together and retaining form; solidity or firmness. Trustworthiness means warranting trust, reliable. Untested, you don’t really know if those character traits are present and accounted fully for in your heart and life. Do you want that kind of character? Do you want to sow those kinds of seeds and experience the harvest thereof?  Sadly few do. It is so much more easy and comfortable to say “this is me, this is what I do and who I am…deal with it.” Well and good. Your God given free will allows for you to do that which you feel big and bad enough to do. One thing though. God exposes. The enemy is an expert at setting you up to knock you down and God will allow for you to hold sway over others with deceit, lies and falsehood for only awhile. Then He allows for an exposure of truth that will leave you naked and as is before others. The ultimate end to all lies is an end called death. In death your every thought, your heart and every word and deed will be JUDGED and rewarded or condemned. Personally, I want to hear more reward and earn more crowns than to know the sorrow and disappointment I caused my Lord simply because I was un-yielded and unwilling to obey. So…ask today “Put me on trial, LORD, and cross-examine me. Test my motives and my heart.” Find out the depth or lack thereof of your consistency and trustworthiness. Grow from there. Beloved, I am praying with and for you.

Please feel free to forward CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr to friends and colleagues, but please forward in its entirety. CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr is written and distributed by Arete1 International. No portion of this publication may be copied or reproduced without the expressed written consent of Cheryl L. Carr.

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Being LOVE-able

John 13: 34-35 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

1 John 3:18–19. "Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in deed and in truth."

1 John 4:17–19 “In this is love perfected with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love.”

Love is something everyone wants to possess.  Loving is something most want to be known as. You are hard pressed to find someone who says “I don’t want to be loved or loving.” Loving is something everyone thinks they are and does well. But truth is, LOVED is something few if any feel on a consistent basis. Not many of us are truly LOVE-able, which means not only do we understand and know ourselves well enough to give love, we know how to BE LOVED.

Most think of it as they do eating, drinking and sleeping. They assume they’re just programmed to love and how to do it well. While yes, we are programmed at birth with the ability to have feelings called love—God sends us here wired with His full capacity to love and we don’t get more love from Him He gives us His love full strength at creation. He IS LOVE and always gives us His best.  It then becomes our task from first breath to last to develop, stimulate and learn how to ACT LOVEABLE.  Being loveable means you not only know how to show love, you know how to RECEIVE IT. It doesn’t just happen and so few of us allow love in. We wall ourselves off from love most often not because of low self-esteem or feeling unworthy of love, we do it most often because we are un-willinging to be loveable in that moment when love presents itself to be received.  We would rather perform then to be intimate and open and vulnerable. Most of us are numb to love. WE don’t even know ourselves well enough to know what we require, desire, want, need. That requires the pretense masks off, truth and reality and everything I really am, on. To really receive love you must not be protective, you must be transparent, honest, bare… the real you, not a representative. Anything you put in between you and love dilutes it and prevents it from reaching you full strength.  

    We were created for healthy relationships. God made us to need one another, we are reciprocal creatures , yet we live so one-sided, selfishly performing acts that appear like love but if we do them without love in our heart, it is simply an act .Too many of us have not taken the time to let God reduce us to love. When we fail in our relationships and fail to exercise biblical grace and love one to another AS WE HAVE BEEN LOVED, we become lonely and loneliness is a terrible condition, stimulating desperation and fear. Healthy balance is being neither needy nor cold. It can seem arrogant to a Christian to say, "I'm a lovable person. I'm worthwhile and deserve to have someone care deeply about me,” yet that is exactly what you have to say in order to be LOVE-able. Take some time today to check your love meter. Love is the greatest power on earth. People need to feel more love and they need to feel it from YOU. Will you become more love-able today?

Beloved, LOVE NEVER FAILS. I am praying with and for you.

Please feel free to forward CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr to friends and colleagues, but please forward in its entirety. CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr is written and distributed by Arete1 International. No portion of this publication may be copied or reproduced without the expressed written consent of Cheryl L. Carr. Copyright 2012 Cheryl Carr and ARETE1 International. 2012 rightwordsbycheryl© Follow me on Facebook : Cheryl Carr and Arete1. Follow me on twitter: Arete1Int.

Turn On or Turn Off!

Revelation 3:15-I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other.

Romans 12:11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord!

Ecclesiastes 10:18 Because of laziness the roof caves in, and because of negligent hands the roof leaks.

2 Corinthians 9:13 Through the proof of this service they will glorify God for your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ.

Spiritual laziness runs rampant in religious circles today. We are tepid, languid, keeping up our Christian act, saying the right things, maybe even doing the right things too. From all outward appearances we look pretty good.  Ah, but inwardly. Let some trial or situation show up. Watch then. We fall to one extreme or the other…we get white hot and fervent for the Lord with crisis oriented Christianity, doing things as we had not before because, well, now we really need Him to answer our prayers for healing, deliverance or provision. Before that we were doing quite well and didn’t really need Him all up in our business, we had it all under control. OR,  we become angry and disappointed and determine religion doesn’t work for us, God doesn’t care about me/my situation enough to do/give me as I told Him to with all my actions, so we shut off and run to worldly pleasures, sin, people, drugs, alcohol, food, sex. Whatever feels good and numbs the pain— we reach for it and place it on the throne of our life, and set God on the shelf. We know He’s there, we might come back, or maybe not, whatever!

Truth is Beloved, being a spiritual gimp/lukewarm is worse than either of those states I just mentioned. God says anything lukewarm is good for one thing...spitting it out!  If you’re hot, God knows how to get you to balance. At least you’re turned on and paying rapt attention, He can get to you and will work with you. And, if you’re cold in the world with its temporal pleasures God knows how far to let you go until you come to yourself. Trust me, after  you get the “itis” from dining on worldly pleasures, like the prodigal son, you will come to yourself and remember God’s goodness is sweeter than the pig slop you desire to dine on (Luke 15:16).

The enemy of good isn’t evil. The enemy of good is good enough. That tepid, languid place we all get to where we exert very little volitional muscle, no tremendous exercise of the will is needed so we “park and ride” in our faith, so we think. Truth is, lukewarmness is death by paper cut. When we are lukewarm we are dying without seeing the decaying and God wants us to either turn on or turn off, not keep up that spiritual drip, drip. It is always amazing to me when people tell me to “calm down” and “it doesn’t take all that.”  I disagree and confront them with their apathy.  I am white hot and sometimes with more zeal than knowledge but I TRUST GOD. He will do what He says He will do and He will stand by His word. He always comes through! You will have no great adventures of faith to participate in when you’re a good enough, bench warming Christian who God cannot entrust with any affliction or suffering or trouble requiring ruthlessly trusting in Him. I prefer to ruthlessly trust Him even if no one else does. He keeps calling us deeper. As for me, I will keep going so yes, it takes all that and is too much for most. I am okay with that!

Adventures in faith take ALL OF YOU, not part. You can't hold back a thing. Yes, it is full of pain, loss, dark times and valley’s but oh my goodness what a rush and an amazing, astounding, description defying life when you full on trust God, adhere to and rely on his dependability. Try Him and see. Turn on or off today; quit asking for comfort, perfection, sameness, the temporal and for what you can see and desire only. Ask Him for His best, TRUST HIM there no matter what it looks like, He is ever faithful.

Beloved, I am praying with and for you.

Please feel free to forward CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr to friends and colleagues, but please forward in its entirety. CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr is written and distributed by Arete1 International. No portion of this publication may be copied or reproduced without the expressed written consent of Cheryl L. Carr. Copyright 2012 Cheryl Carr and ARETE1 International.

2012 rightwordsbycheryl© Follow me on Facebook : Cheryl Carr and Arete1. Follow me on twitter: Arete1Int.

REJECTED TO ACCEPTED

John 15:18 If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.

John 1:11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.

If you are alive and breathing you have dealt with the pain of rejection. That pain is very real and new research shows that the same areas of the brain that signify physical pain are activated at moments of intense social loss. Being rejected, having your opinion not matter or presence not desired HURTS and it will come at you from all sides, in every relationship or encounter with another human being. So, why do we fear rejection and avoid it like the plague since it’s so prevalent?  Actually it’s because being accepted/acceptable is a basic human need. We need community, and were created for relationship so we will contort ourselves in amazing ways to get in and fit in. Sadly, though that need is across the board people will not like, want, or desire your presence no matter how much you need  or want them to.

Because rejection is universal (we all experience it) and unavoidable (you will be rejected by someone someday), why don’t we just embrace rejection and deal well with being “thrown back, not desired, un- wanted?”  Why don’t we give ourselves enough permission to fail and stop internalizing rejection realizing it’s absolutely okay and another person’s right to decide if we’re desirable to/ for them and their purpose? Here is a newsflash: YOU CAN STOP WANTING SOMEONE OR SOMETHING THAT DOES NOT WANT YOU! Did you get that?  We fight the wind when we subvert our God-given dignity in an attempt to force ourselves onto or into something or someone’s life.  So, stop that. Stop is to cease all motion. When rejection surely comes, learn to “row towards the pain,” do not fight it or deny it, instead allow it, examine it, improve from it, and let people and things go. Sometimes rejection is protection from God because He knows that thing from the end to the beginning, you don’t and only THINK that thing/person may be what is best for you, chances are by virtue of their rejection, they’re not. They were not for you and you were not for them. Someone and somewhere else will find you absolutely amazing—will hire you, desire you, commit to you and marry you.  That won’t happen if you stay in place to be rejected over and over again, remove yourself from the equation with your head held high, not pride but confidence, and in strength move forward on your way past rejected to accepted. Beloved, I am praying with you and for you!

Please feel free to forward CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr to friends and colleagues, but please forward in its entirety. CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr is written and distributed by Arete1 International. No portion of this publication may be copied or reproduced without the expressed written consent of Cheryl L. Carr. Copyright 2012 Cheryl Carr and ARETE1 International. 2012 rightwordsbycheryl© Follow me on Facebook : Cheryl Carr and Arete1. Follow me on twitter: Arete1Int.

A Storm Steady Mindset

Philippians 2:5- Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus

Matthew 14:22-33- ³¹ immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”³² And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. ³³ Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Life will rock you and throw you off cliffs into darkness. Some of this rocking and cliff tossing is self-inflicted due to poor choices, others come from the hands of others hell-bent on causing you harm, some come completely out of nowhere,-you're dancing  in the sunshine of life, comfy and doing quite all right then BAM! IT_________(fill in the blank) happens to you.  Sunshine runs and torrential rain filled clouds fill your life sky. What you do there beloved, what you choose to set your heart and view upon will determine if you merely ride the storm out--each and every dark cloud washing hope away; or the sighted but never coming silver lining clouds remain just over there OR you place a strong sure anchor on your feet and a sure protection umbrella over your head...you must choose a storm steady mindset, or not. It won't just happen.

So what is a storm steady mindset? It is one that pays attention to the thoughts in mind regarding the storms purpose, duration and intensity. A storm steady mindset directs thoughts to salvations surety and scriptures reliability. A storm steady mind realizes failure isn’t fatal, that like success, it’s temporary. It says this too shall pass. It refuses to embrace a storm for its pity producing presence saying “I can't stay here." this mindset let's purpose fuel it's perseverance. A storm steady mindset also realizes that sharing your situation/circumstances must be done with those God assigns to you in your storm. Few want to share your blues and hear your woes, and nothing brings worse injury to a hurting heart than an insensitive, bible quoting, they’re not in a storm so they don’t feel you “friend.” It’s best to ask God for that person HE’s assigned you to carry you through to the steady shore. Everyone else is just fine watching you row (or walk on water, which ever you preferJ)

KNOWING from past experience that God is fully aware of the storm He may have sent the storm for His glory and your deliverance (storms clear and cleanse away clutter) but assuredly He is allowing it because He is in control. Rest assured, sent or allowed, GET THE LESSON FROM THE STORM. You will either learn the lesson of the storm before it passes you by or you may see that same storm again and again. God is a master teacher. He repeats until learning occurs and He sees a storm steady mind in His child, you. When a storm descends upon my life I’ve learned to silence myself and others and listen in to God’s teaching. What is He saying to me in whatever is happening? God is still speaking loudly even today and knows all about your situation. He wants you better tomorrow than you are today.

Beloved, I am praying with and for you!

Please feel free to forward CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr to friends and colleagues, but please forward in its entirety. CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr is written and distributed by Arete1 International. No portion of this publication may be copied or reproduced without the expressed written consent of Cheryl L. Carr.
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Equanimity-Faith not Feelings!

Isaiah 59: 9-10 So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like men without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead.

Isaiah 55:8-9 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 26:3 You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.

What do you do when life implodes? When the job and its income disappears, when the child or spouse dies, or worse--rejects and leaves you, when health fails and disease rests. When all you work for is stolen and the thief gets away...what do you do? Bills are due and friends are few, family lets you know everything that's wrong with you. What do you do when life goes dark and God has gone silent, His heaven as brass above you? Most of us react emotionally. We open the door and tell misery, disappointment and hopelessness to come on in. Depression and isolation soon join and bitterness takes root. We are angry at God. We waffle between times of praise and intense spiritual practice, reading the word, quoting scripture and sowing financial seeds to sit back and wait on the payday that never comes. We then flat out ignore God right back and like two year olds acting out, we will show Him...we drink, sex, smoke, snort or party our way to temporarily feeling good. This was not supposed to happen. It’s not fair. This hurts. I am suffering, doesn't God care? Yes He does, and you know that but you don't feel that emotionally or see it intellectually. Yes, even after your heartfelt pleadings you serve a God that could choose not to respond! Beloved, do you not know that God will crush your pride and humble you? He will allow your every gift and ability to become a circus of inability. Your understanding will be darkened; every plan and purpose will seem at best confusion magnified. And it is here that naked faith and equanimity (evenness of mind especially under stress; balance) are all the Believer has to anchor them from drifting into disbelief.

Listen to how Madame Guyon describes this period of time in her book Final Steps in Christian Maturity:

"There comes a time in the believer's life when the Lord withdraws the joy. He will seemingly withdraw the graces. At the same time, the Christian may also find himself in a period of persecution-persecution, no less, than that coming from Christians in religious authority. Further, he may find much difficulty in his home or private life. He may also be experiencing great difficulties with his health. Somewhere there will be a great deal of pain or other losses too numerous to mention.
"The believer may also be undergoing experiences which he feels are totally unique to himself. Other Christians, in whom he has put his trust, may forsake him and mistreat him. He may feel that he has been very unjustly treated. He will feel this toward men and he will feel it toward his God, for-in the midst of all this other pain and confusion-it will seem that God, too, has left him! Even more believers give up the journey when the Lord seems to have forsaken them in the spirit and left their spirit dead-while the world and all else is crashing in on them, friends forsaking them, and great suffering and pain abounding everywhere in their lives. But, the true land of promise always lies beyond a vast wasteland. Promise is found only on the far side of a desert."When you can go beyond that place and, not seeing your Lord, believe He is there by the eyes of faith alone; when you can walk further and further into Christ when there are no senses, no feelings, not even the slightest registration of the presence of God; when you can sit before Him when everything around you and within you seems to be either falling apart or dead; and when you can come before your Lord without question and without demand, serene in faith alone, and there, before Him, worship Him without distraction, without a great deal of consciousness of self and with no spiritual sense of Him, then will the test of commitment begin to be established. Then will begin the true journey of the Christian life."

This is truth and a higher reality than is taught these days of selfish success oriented living, where being blessed means you have no stress ( I vow to never say that stupid chattering ever again)--"The devil has nothing to do with (these dark times). God has brought us to this experience. He wants [simply] to replace us with Himself" (Alan Redpath). Get that. GOD WANTS TO REPLACE YOU WITH HIMSELF. He will forcefully rid you of any and everything but Him. Why? Love. Eternity. He loves you with an everlasting love which wants to fill you with the fullness of Himself. In you dwells no good thing apart from Him and yes, He is willing to make no sense to you, utterly confounding all you trust and believe because no matter how long you serve Him on this side of heaven you at best know OF HIM but cannot ever grasp the totality of KNOWING HIM. So what to do? Sit in silence. Be still and know, He is at work in your night season. He guides us as much by what He doesn't say to us as He does by what He does say to us. When He wants you to know He is done replacing you with Himself, He will open the door and your darkness will become marvelous light. You would do well to deeply and completely believe that. Beloved, I am praying with and for you.

Please feel free to forward CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr to friends and colleagues, but please forward in its entirety. CEENOTES with Cheryl Carr is written and distributed by Arete1 International.(c) Copyright 2012 Cheryl Carr and ARETE1 International

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DESIRES DICTATE!

Psalm 37: 4- (The Message) Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you your hearts desires.

Psalm 40:8- (ESV) I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.

James 1:14-18 (NIV)… but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.  Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created.

What do you desire? Wish for? Want desperately? These are common conditions familiar to us all and we mistakenly use desire, wish, hope and want interchangeably when DESIRE is the root for all that we hope for, wish for and desperately want. We also frequently confuse desire with passion and reduce it to sexual feelings, but true desire is so much more and, in fact most often intrinsic. Desires are not as voluntary as we choose to believe and they make us crave meeting them from our core. Genuine desires are most deeply innate, they just ARE and were with us from birth. Actions arise out of desires and we do what we want to do unless crisis or need supersede our desires (which is a most unsatisfactory way to live).

Truth told, desires are dictators.  They are non-negotiable. They will tell you how to feel, how to think and how to act. Desires won’t listen to God, need, other people unless you force them to and they frequently render you powerless to do so by hiding/submerging and squishing themselves under accomplishments and achievements--that's why we so frequently go down a course in life and then once we arrive what we get isn't really what we thought it would be or want, and why the rub in life is not just getting what we want, but wanting what we have. 

Desires especially run amok when unattended and show up in the form of addictions and obsessions. They're an important part of our emotional make-up, our soul. They sit on the seat of our well-being and are a catalyst to will, want, accomplish and fulfill your purpose and reason for existence. You have to pay attention to your desires and learn to meet them in a beneficial way. For successful living you must come to terms with how you let your desires dictate your motivations, pleasures and rewards. You must also submit your desires to God and pray for Him to reveal what they really are because most often we’re in denial or ignorant about what is really dangling below the surface dictating our behaviors.   

Getting insight into your own deepest desires is a worthy pursuit. Turning off life, settling into silence and counting your life worthy of examination is a most difficult discipline but is needed. Receiving His loving answers about what you’re truly desiring, wanting and needing will bring you such peace and put your life on a path to authentic living you won’t regret. Beloved, I am praying with and for you.

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KILL PRIDE!

1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world -- the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life -- is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

PROVERBS 16:18-19 -Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.

PROVERBS 29:23  A man's pride will bring him low, but the humble in spirit will retain honor

 Pride is at the root of all sin. God hates pride in any shape, form or fashion. He even hates a prideful or haughty look.  In the Believers life pride is a serious matter and a formidable foe. One that you can’t fight, trying to lay it aside or hide it. You have to kill it. And, it has an amazing ability to resurrect and disguise itself. Its the houseguest who will not leave. Its always hanging out and around somewhere in your life. Few recognize its presence because it rarely shouts (we’ll see it then). It merely whispers “I am not here.”

 What is pride you ask? PRIDE IS FAITH IN YOUR SELF.  Pride is belief in your own ability to think, say, do whatsoever you will to do.  Pride is being arrogant: exaggerating or disposed to exaggerate one's own worth or importance in overbearing manner arrogance: a feeling of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or presumptuous claims; inordinate self-esteem; conceit. Pride dresses beautifully but acts ugly. Pride thinks it’s better than anyone else.  Pride is very, very busy because it has to do everything itself, on its own because no one else can do things as well as pride can.  Pride is critical of others, judging the speck in their eye while dismissing or excusing the log in its own eye and making sure any fault or short-coming another may manifest is simply not possible, could never happen to them.  It doesn’t submit to authority, won’t listen to a word someone else says because after all, what do they know and how could they be right when Pride is never, ever wrong? All is someone else’s fault with Pride; it’s never the blame or cause for anything…its THEIR FAULT. Pride is just hard. Never tender. Nothing is precious to Pride. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is safe.

Pride lies and hides. Throws rocks and hides its hands. You will never see it to kill it. Hidden pride must be revealed by God Himself. He is quite capable of doing it in advance of having to humble you if you will ask Him for this. You must pray Psalm 139:24-“Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”  The path of everlasting life is parallel opposite to the prideful path. It is narrow and at times hard and full of suffering (Matthew 7:14-But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it).  To kill pride, ADMIT YOU HAVE IT (and you do). Refuse to believe in yourself over believing in GOD IN YOU. Trust Him, His word and His way as best. Pray about pride in your life often. Submit to God. Obey Him. That’s the only way to kill the insidious and ruinous enemy of Pride. Beloved, I am praying with you and for you.

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