WEEK FIVE - DAY THREE - PERILOUS PRIDE

PRIDE - imho the root cause of all sin - our complete obsession with self.  Satan knows us so well; as he whispers in our ears, he prefaces almost every temptation with "You"..."You deserve it", "You need it", "You are more important", "You are smarter."  And our itchy ears say, "Yes, yes, yes, I do and yes, I am!"  And down the rabbit hole we go!  Chasing the elusive "something" that will feed our pride and make us feel complete.  While all the time God is calling to us to lay down our pride and allow Him to be our completion...but that takes admitting that we need Him and that we cannot find completion within ourselves.  Pride is the barrier to the relationship with God that He is calling us to.  We must recognize it within ourselves and then ask Him to rid ourselves of it, asap!  The sooner we humble ourselves, the sooner He will be able to have true Lordship of our lives.  There's only room for one on the throne of our hearts!

The nations that surrounded Israel were full of earthly pride.  They prided themselves on their accumulation of wealth and treasure, on their powerful horses and military might, and on their trade skills.  They were arrogant in their feelings of independence and self accomplishment.  And Judah, God's special people, had allowed their neighbors' attitudes to infiltrate into their own...they too were arrogant, and sometimes in the fact that they felt God had elevated them to a place of no reproach.  God would never turn on them, no matter how far they wandered away from His commands...or so they thought! Jeremiah 5:12-13 "They have lied about the Lord and said, 'He won't bother us!  No disasters will come upon us.'"  

Back to our memory verse of this week, Jeremiah 9:23-24, "This is what the Lord says, 'Don't let the wise boast in their wisdom; or the powerful in their power; or the rich in their riches.  But those who wish to boast, should boast in this alone:  That they  truly know me and understand that I am the Lord.'"  God is telling us that we have no reason to be prideful...all of our wisdom, power and riches are of no value to Him.  He has no need of them.  And the only thing that we can offer to others that is of any eternal value is our true  knowledge of God and the acknowledgement of Him as Lord over all.  Brag about that if you're going to brag about anything!

When Jeremiah's assistant, Baruch, grows weary of his assignments and complains of fatigue and being overwhelmed, Jeremiah admonishes him and asks him, "Are you seeking great things for yourself?  Don't do it!" Jeremiah 45:5a.  The same warning comes to us...are we seeking great thing for ourselves over and above the assignments that God is tasking us with?  Is our view of our importance, our wisdom, our abilities causing us to question the "lesser" things that God may have laid out in our lives for us to accomplish for His purposes?  Don't do it!  Don't let pride cause you to miss something wonderful, a moment when you truly see God allowing you to participate in His plan in a way you would have never imagined!  Jeremiah tells Baruch that because of his obedience, God will spare him from coming disaster.  "Great things" that Baruch may have dreamed of doing may have led him right into situations he could have never gotten out of and completely out of God's will.  

Pray for the areas of your life where you tend to feel prideful and ask God to rid yourself of that sinful pride.  Then ask Him to remind you of all the things that you boast about in Him, all the ways that He has shown Himself in your life.  Pray for yourself, pray for our nation to be humbled and to turn back to our Creator God.  He IS everything...He IS life....He IS our God!