Crush The Pride, Strive For Wisdom

May 24, 2021

By pride comes nothing but strife, But with the well-advised is wisdom.

~Proverbs 13:10~

Wisdom is something we all long for as we walk beside Jesus. Something the Father will give freely as we humbly ask with good intentions; "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him."

(James 1:5)

God desires that His children walk in humility each day. If we struggle to, He is faithful enough to help us work on building up our humility and tearing down our pride. Pride is something that is very hard to strip away, especially if it's been there most of our life. It causes us to be blinded to the very concept that we are being prideful. It is a vicious circle indeed. Solomon, filled with wisdom, wrote the importance of recognizing pride in a lot of scripture. Perhaps he wanted us to be reminded just how dangerous it was for us in our own walk with God. When we are so boastful of our own accounts, we do not recognize God and we end up withering in our faith; "But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil."

(James 4:16)

When we believe we have all the answers or that we hold on to all knowledge it is in fact the moment when we are in need of a reassessment of ourselves. None of us in this world could ever know everything, we learn every single day up until the moment we take our last breath. This kind of pride is easy for any of us to fall into and we must pray to the Lord for help that we may not fall in such a way. "Then Simon answered and said, “Pray to the Lord for me, that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me.” (Acts 8:24)

Simon thought he had it all figured out, he thought he could bargain for God's power. He was wrong and his foolish pride had caused him to sin against God. Luckily we serve an all forgiving God as repentance takes place. The very gift of salvation was given to us through repentance and belief in Jesus. He came to destroy the very one who caused man to fall from the beginning; the very first act of pride came from satan himself. He then took revenge on God's children by causing them to take part in the same sin; pride. Sin entered the world by pride and grew into many other things, but praise be to God that He made a way for us to be humble and know Him. Jesus came to put to death the concept of pride all together; "He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil."

(I John 3:8)

Jesus then proceeded to call us forward in humility, just as He humbled Himself.

"And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross." (Philippians 2:8)

This was wisdom straight from Heaven. Just as Solomon put to words; by pride comes nothing but strife. When we puff up ourselves over another, nothing good comes out of it. We do not even feel good about ourselves deep down inside. A partner to pride, strange enough is insecurity. When one is not secure in themselves they tend to puff themselves up as camouflage. God sees the true heart of a man/woman. We cannot hide anything from Him, nor can we outsmart Him. If we wish to gain wisdom and understanding, we must humble ourselves as Jesus did. We must fully submit ourselves to His will and accept that we just do not know as much as we think we do. God loves us all way too much to let us continue in our own selfish ambition for too long; "And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Matthew 23:12)

Sooner or later it does get revealed so we may choose to deal with it or continue to fall into strife and bitterness. Let us be well-advised stewards of God. Let us work to humble ourselves to God so that in due time we may be exalted with Him. Most of the time inner healing needs to take place to get to the root of our pride; with much prayer and help from another who walks in the love of God will allow us to receive the help we need. We are here for eachother and God gives generously to those who can admit they need the help. We do have free will of course; "And when you offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord, offer it of your own free will." (Leviticus 22:29)

Let us offer ourselves up to the Lord as a living sacrifice and humbly submit to Him, giving thanks and asking Him to strip away any pride that may still be deep down inside. He is waiting to be our helping hand. He loves us enough to remind us time and time again in the words of the scriptures that pride is not the way we should go. He does not want us to fall, there is one who does and he is looking to steal, kill and destroy us. He hates God's children and he wishes only that we may cause strife, confusion and division amongst eachother and it all stems from pride. Let us crush satan under our feet as we destroy our own pride!

Prayer:

Father God, thank you for the wisdom that comes from Your word. Without Your own humility to mankind I would be lost in my own prideful ways. I pray that if there is any within me, that You may show me and help me to get rid of it. I trust in Your ways and I do not wish to puff myself up. I am willing to learn every day of my life and humble myself under Your mighty hand. Thank you for guiding me in the way I need to go. I silence any wicked voice that causes me to become prideful today in Jesus Name. I pray that I may be a blessing and not a curse. I pray that my family in Christ submit fully to You each day. Let us crush satan together my Lord and declare Your works to this world. I exalt Your Name on High and praise You as I live out each day serving You. It is in Your Humble Name I pray and receive wisdom from the Kingdom, Jesus Christ. Amen.