The Deadly Sin

"...you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  We all know the story.  The serpent was

crafty and deceived the woman.  He did this by appealing to her pride and causing her to question God.  Pride.  Because of pride death entered the world.  Ever since then pride has been destroying lives.  

Cain wasn't happy because God accepted Abel's sacrifice and not his.  Pride.  He murdered his brother.

Naaman thought the waters of his own home had to be better than any river in Israel.  He almost missed out on the healing God wanted to give.  

Nebuchadnezzar was so full of pride that he had a statue made of himself and commanded everyone to worship it.  Later in his life he lost his mind for seven years and lived like an animal, all because of pride.

Remember when David went up against Goliath?  Goliath was full of pride and mocked David.  That didn't last long.

What about the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.  The Pharisee even bragged about himself to God.  He was not justified.

We could go on and on.  Paul before his conversion, the apostles, Herod, Pharaoh...

James has something to say about pride. “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”  Pride is deadly.  It is a poison.  It will kill us.  God is opposed to pride because of his great love for us.  He knows that pride will keep us from the grace he desires to pour out on us.

How many have you known who refuse to submit to God because they think they are better than others.  They are good people and of course they don't need God.  

Pride can destroy a ministry.  When a church leader starts to feel that they are strong and can get into compromising situations and they will resist sin, pride often leads to their downfall and the destruction of their good influence.

Recently I have seen how pride can destroy a person.  A longtime worker in the kingdom has begun to think too highly of himself and is more interested in making a great name for himself than in furthering the Lord's work.  He was heard to brag that he was going to build himself the nicest house in the area.  May God humble him before it is too late.

C.S. Lewis said, “the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride.”  Pride is the foundation of sins.  We start to think we know better than God.

We must examine ourselves daily and root out pride.  We are saved by the grace of God, just as every other saved person is.  We are lost without Him.  Jesus died because of MY sins.  Pride will rear its ugly head frequently, but we must destroy it completely before it destroys us for eternity.

 February

I am one of those curious people.  I sometimes wonder about the strangest things and try to find the answers.  Recently I began to wonder about the names of the months.  

The ancient Roman empire fell centuries ago but its influence remains. Many of the months are named for Roman Gods.  As February drew near I began to wonder for what this month is named.  Here is what Wikipedia has to say: 

February got its name from the Latin word "februum," which means purification, linked to the ancient Roman festival of Februa that involved rituals of cleansing. This month was added to the calendar by King Numa Pompilius around 713 BC.

Basically, February was the month of purification. Naturally, that got me to thinking about purity.

In our Sunday evening Bible study we have been studying the Sermon on the Mount. Since we just started this a few weeks ago we are still working through the beatitudes. Thinking about February and purification linked up in my mind with our discussion of "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."

What does it mean to be pure in heart? When something is pure it is all one substance. There is nothing foreign in it. Pure gold, is gold. With God's help our hearts need to be purely His. No room for anything but God. Something we must continually work toward.

Seeing God! The pure in heart will see God. Consider someone who doesn't have a pure heart toward God. That person will not see God's hand in the events of his or her life. They will not see God as they walk in the forest or under the beautiful sky. Even as we wait for our new bodies where we will be able to stand in the presence of God and see Him as He is, we can see him all around us if we have pure hearts.

As we move through February let's work on purifying our hearts, filling them so full of God that there is no room for anything else.