HomeARC ML 1929
PRIDE!--THE ROOT OF ALL SIN!--BUT YOU CAN OVERCOME IT! Maria 23 2/85 DO 1929
--Talk to a Leader
1. MANY OF US HAVE TROUBLE TAKING CORRECTION, although we all know that we need it & deserve it. I guess it's not only because we don't like to acknowledge that we were wrong but also because accepting correction means that we're SUBMITTING to the person that's correcting us, & submission is pretty hard! But submission & obedience are the things the Lord is probably trying to teach us most in our lives! He's trying to get us to OBEY Him, & in obeying Him we're SUBMITTING to Him, we're surrendering to His Will! Surrender & submission & yielding are pretty much synonymous with OBEDIENCE! When we obey someone, we are yielding to their will.
2. IF OUR SPIRITS ARE SUBMISSIVE WE CAN TAKE CORRECTION A LOT EASIER BECAUSE WE WON'T FIGHT AGAINST IT, WE'LL YIELD & ACCEPT IT & LEARN FROM IT. This, of course, is what the Lord is trying to get us to do, to learn to submit, to be submissive to Him, so He has to put us through a lot of corrections to teach us submission. Correction is GOOD for us because it's practice in submission, it teaches us to yield! You don't just learn to submit overnight, it takes time, it takes breaking, it takes suffering, it takes surrender & yieldedness! Even Jesus learned obedience through the things that He suffered. (Heb.5:8) Our whole life for the Lord is learning to surrender to His Will in everything, & as we do, we grow CLOSER to the Lord! What does it mean when we say we've grown closer to the Lord? It means we've learned to obey Him better & to submit to His Will more. So correction is a necessary part of learning to submit, as it teaches us to submit not just to the Lord, but to others as well.
3. CHILDREN WHO ARE BROUGHT UP IN A STRICT HOME WITH STRICT PARENTS, THEY'VE LEARNED FROM BABYHOOD TO SUBMIT TO THEIR PARENTS' WISHES & WILL. Of course they didn't VOLUNTARILY submit, they usually learned it through correction & chastisement; people have to be forcibly persuaded to surrender or submit. But I think those who as children were brought up with strong discipline & had to submit to their parents have an easier time, in some ways, submitting to the LORD'S Will! Your parents are a physical example of your Heavenly Father, at least they should be, & the Lord made parents to be this way so they could be examples of His loving discipline & loving rule. I think He meant their loving care & loving discipline to be training in submission to HIM. He wanted us to learn it when we were younger so that when we got older we would be so in the habit of submitting to authority that we wouldn't have any problem submitting to our HEAVENLY Father! If all our lives we've submitted to our earthly parents, then it shouldn't be so difficult to recognise God's authority & to bow to it & defer to it, & submit to it!
4. THE LORD USES THE CHASTISEMENT & CORRECTION WE RECEIVE FROM THOSE IN AUTHORITY, LIKE OUR PARENTS & TEACHERS & LEADERS, TO HELP TEACH US TO SUBMIT. I'm sure He even used some bad leadership you had in the past to help teach you this, since that's one thing you can say for them, they sure were good at helping people to submit & obey them! Even though what they were demanding wasn't always the best, at least the Lord used it & it was good practice in learning how to obey & follow orders. That's the thing the Lord is trying to get us to do all our lives long, to SUBMIT to His Will & to be OBEDIENT, which are practically the same thing!--And part of learning that is learning to submit to correction, to submit in ATTITUDE, & in SPIRIT! The Lord is trying to teach us submission in spirit, to have a SUBMITTED heart & WILLING heart & a RECEIVING heart instead of a RESENTFUL REBELLIOUS heart!
5. WHAT IS IT THAT KEEPS US FROM OBEYING? WHAT IS IT THAT MAKES US REBELLIOUS, DEFIANT & RESENTFUL? WHAT IS IT THAT MAKES OUR SPIRITS THAT WAY? What causes that refusal to surrender, that hesitation, defiance or rebelliousness? If you KNOW you're wrong & you're being corrected & you don't receive it, or if the Lord wants you to do something & you don't want to do it, you don't want to submit, then I'd say that is DEFINITELY pride & self-righteousness.
6. I THINK WE CAN SAY IF WE RESENT CORRECTION OR DON'T LIKE IT OR ARE REBELLIOUS AGAINST IT, THAT IT'S USUALLY BECAUSE OF PRIDE. When we don't want to OBEY the Lord, that's not ALWAYS just because of pride, because there are lots of other reasons why we sometimes don't want to obey the Lord or do His Will, perhaps because we think it's too hard, or that we can't do it. There could be quite a few reasons for not wanting to submit to the Lord, but I guess in the long run it really DOES come down to pride. We could use the excuse of being afraid of failing, that we're afraid we can't do it or we're scared of doing it, but you can even trace that back to pride. Why are we afraid of failing? If we were the only ones who knew we failed maybe that wouldn't affect us so much, but we don't want OTHERS to see that we failed, & that's pride! I guess it's even pride if we don't want to say to ourselves, "I've failed." You don't want to accept the fact that you failed or you've done anything wrong, because it destroys the nice self-image that you have of yourself, your self-righteousness. I guess we can trace quite a few of our failures to submit to the Lord or to obey the Lord & to take correction--back to pride!
7. DAD SAID, "AT THE ROOT OF EVERY SIN THERE IS PRIDE"! When you stop to analyse it & think about it, you can see how true it is. We can memorise a lot of Quotes & verses, but sometimes we miss the real depth of what they mean, so sometimes it helps to really think about it & apply the Word to your personal situation, to ask, "How is that true & how is that so?"--Not with a questioning doubtful attitude but one full of faith, believing that we can learn even more lessons if we search further. It really helps you understand things better when you do try to trace things back & look for specific examples to confirm the basic principles. It looks like we can definitely trace things back to pride, in which case an awful lot of us are REALLY full of pride! "At the root of every sin is pride!" To say that all of our sin is due in some way to pride is a pretty big statement, but if you really analyse it you see it's TRUE! It's pretty obvious that arguments & contentions are due to pride. Self-righteousness, thinking that you're better than someone else, or better than the Lord, is pride. If you don't want to obey the Lord because you think you're right or you think you have a better way, that's pride too!
8. TELL ME, WHAT DO YOU FEAR & WORRY ABOUT? (Fam: I have a fear of what people might say, & fear of failure.) Well, a lot of that's pride, but how are you going to get rid of that pride? (Fam: By submitting myself to the Lord.) Yes, the more we submit the more He helps us, & the easier it becomes, in fact it almost becomes a habit. So many things like that ARE habits. We don't usually think of them that way, but it's true, the more often we do them, the easier they become. Maybe it gets easier because the more the Lord sees that we're obedient, then the more grace He gives us & the more He helps it to become easy.
9. YOU'LL PROBABLY NEVER GET A COMPLETE PERMANENT VICTORY OVER PRIDE, BECAUSE PRIDE IS SOMETHING WHICH WE ALL HAVE TO CONSTANTLY FIGHT AGAINST, but you CAN get a victory to where it doesn't have such a HOLD or GRIP on you! If you really feel that your pride is a big constant hindering problem in your life, then having united prayer against it probably will help!--It certainly can't hurt! The Lord is able!--He SAVED us & now He can DELIVER us from anything!
10. OF COURSE, YOU'RE STILL GOING TO HAVE TEMPORARY FIGHTS & TEMPORARY BATTLES, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT OUR LIFE IS MADE OF, we have tests & challenges, we have to fight battles to get victories so we can move along & grow & progress, but that doesn't mean that we have to be constantly battling & having problems at every turn! It's like some of these poor people who are so jealous of everybody, some of them get completely taken over by jealousy to the point that they're insane, they get jealous of anybody that even LOOKS at their husband or wife, it's just a real insanity & is a constant battle! Other problems that people have are that way too, they're selfish & jealous, & I guess pride can be that way too, where you have to be battling it every time you turn around. I just don't think that it's the Lord's Will that we have to be CONSTANTLY fighting against one particular problem. We need to get the VICTORY over it, so we can go on to something else.
11. THE BIBLE SAYS, "FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH", SO WE KNOW WE HAVE TO DO A LOT OF FIGHTING, BUT MOST OF OUR BATTLING & FIGHTING SHOULD BE FOR OTHERS & FOR THE WORK THAT THE LORD HAS GIVEN US TO DO. We should be battling in the Spirit over OTHERS, not fighting all our OWN problems & OURSELVES all the time! I think the Lord wants us to get a victory in those areas so we're not CONSTANTLY having to fight them. Of course occasionally we'll have problems & every once in awhile something will come up that we have to get a big victory over, but I don't think it's something that we should ALWAYS have to have on our mind. I think our minds should mostly be on others' problems & winning others to the Lord & winning new disciples. Look at what a battle that is! You've got to throw yourself completely into THEIR problems to pull them through, so you'd better not have too many of your own, at least not that often, because if you do you'll neglect your sheep!
12. IT'S NOT THE LORD'S WILL THAT WE'RE CONSTANTLY BATTLING WITH OUR OWN PROBLEMS, SO ANYTHING WE CAN DO TO GET A LASTING VICTORY IS WORTH IT! We know we're not going to get rid of EVERYTHING, because that would be too easy & then we'd be perfect, but I think anything we can do to get any kind of greater victory is really important! We may not realise how SPIRITUAL things are & how much of a hold they have on us, so I'd rather have prayer against any spirits that could be bothering me, just in case, even if there AREN'T any! Even if you don't know what's bothering you, I think it's better to go all out & to assume the worst & try to get rid of it just to be sure!
13. I DON'T KNOW HOW STRONG OR HOW BIG YOUR PROBLEM IS, BUT I THINK YOU SHOULD ASK FOR PRAYER AGAINST IT. Of course, I don't expect that you'll get rid of your pride completely, because we all have some pride, but you could pray to get rid of that domination, that power, that powerful hold it has on you. (Fam: When you were talking, the verse that says "Keep back thy servant also from PRESUMPTUOUS sins, let them have no dominion over me," came to me. In Spanish the translation says, "Free me from the sin of PRIDE, let it not have DOMINION over me.") That sure makes a lot more sense, doesn't it? It certainly is a lot more fitting & applicable for most people. Trying to interpret "presumptuous sins" is more difficult, it doesn't mean as much to us, so that's a good translation, it wouldn't hurt to write that in our English Bibles.
14. IT SAYS, "LET THEM NOT HAVE DOMINION OVER ME." See, you may still have problems with it, but the DOMINION is the important thing, who has DOMINION, we want the LORD to have dominion, we want humility & the humble spirit to have dominion over us! The pride is going to be there always & we're always going to have to fight it, but it won't have dominion over us. I don't expect we'll ever get completely over being jealous, because we're all jealous some time in our lives, or at least we have that temptation, but we don't have to be BOUND by it & held by its grip! It doesn't have to have DOMINION over us.
15. (PRAYS:) HELP US TO AVAIL OURSELVES OF ALL THE POWER YOU HAVE TO GIVE US, LORD, & ALL THE VICTORIES YOU HAVE TO GIVE US. Help us to TAKE it, because it's all ours by faith! You want to give us much more than we ever have dreamed of, You want to give us exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think! Please give our precious loved one as much victory as possible over this thing, Lord. We know that it has been a problem for him all his life. He didn't look at it as a problem until he learned to know that it wasn't YOUR way, until he learned that HUMILITY was what You were looking for, a humble & contrite spirit. The way he was brought up in his youth & even his constantly being with leadership since he's joined the Family has contributed to some of the problems he has had. He needs to be set free from it, Lord, please set him free!
16. WE ASK YOU TO MAKE THINGS AS EASY ON HIM AS POSSIBLE SO HE CAN DO AS GOOD A JOB FOR YOU AS POSSIBLE, LORD. There are a lot of other battles to fight & we know he doesn't want to always have to be constantly fighting himself & battling against his pride & his fears of failure & all these things, Lord. He's been giving the Enemy a lot of emphasis & a lot of acknowledgement, when we want him to be able to give YOU the credit & the acknowledgement for helping him to get the VICTORY over these things! Deliver him from having to be constantly fighting the Enemy over these problems & having such a constant battle within him self, Lord, having to fight against his fears & worries about what people will think & fears about being corrected. YOU can give him the victory & You can help him & You can strengthen him through Your Power & Your strength. Please do it, Lord, please help him & give him greater victories!
17. WE KNOW WE HAVE TO HAVE SOME BATTLES & YOU KEEP US HUMBLE BY SOME OF THESE THINGS & THORNS IN THE FLESH, but we know that You don't want us to ALWAYS have to be fighting these problems, we know You want us to go on to greater things in helping other people more & not be worrying so much about ourselves. Help him, Lord, do give him the victories that You have for him & help him to do everything he can to CLAIM them, to claim what You've promised in all the exceeding precious Promises that You've given to us. That's what You've given them to us for, to use them & to avail ourselves of them. Help us to lift our eyes & look at the wonderful things You have for us if we'll just ASK & RECEIVE them! Keep us close to Thee & Thy Will, submitting to You in every area, Lord, in Jesus' name! Amen!
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
