Secrets of A Man’s Heart 7: Prideful heart
Did you know
that pride was Lucifer’s sin?
Isaiah
14: 12-15, and Ezekiel 28: 11-19 had given us the picture of how Lucifer fell
due to this sin. Lucifer, once a model of beauty and perfection, was blameless
from the day he was created until God found out wickedness in his heart. He
grew proud of his beauty; and his splendor began to corrupt his wisdom. Then he
began to be discontented and jealous of God that he desired to ascent to His
throne to be worshipped by all the heavenly hosts. Lucifer rebelled against God
bringing with him one-third of the angels (Revelations 12: 1-9). But God knows
everything that we think and desires, that’s why when He saw all these things
in Lucifer’s heart, He punished him.
Many
people wants to be beautiful. They even tend to go to clinics and fix some
things in their bodies just to achieve it. They conform to trend, or put
make-up just to get the “in” feeling. Many people wanted to be rich, that whether
they do right or wrong doesn’t matter anymore. Many people wanted to be famous,
that showing skin or disgracing their bodies wouldn’t be a problem for them.
Don’t we know that we are the temple of God (1 Corinthians 6: 12-20)? We should
never use this body in immorality because we are the dwelling place of the Lord
Himself, and we are bought for a price, the blood of our Lord.
Everyone seems to be wanting the attention and
praise of the people around them. Everyone wants to be envied and be considered
lucky. People thinks that it is what will make a person happy. But the truth
is, even if we gain all of these things, we won’t still be truly happy and
satisfied--- meaningless, as said by the Philosopher in Ecclesiastes chapter 1.
Time will come that we will grow tired of being famous, and will grow weary of
working so hard; and then we will realize that we are already old that the
beauty we had when we were younger already faded through the years. Nothing in
this world will last forever, and the lost opportunities to build a good
relationship with the Lord will not come back again. “What shall it profit a man if he gains the
whole world but loses his own soul?” (Mark 8: 36-38)
Success is
something that we should not desire to boast about, but to live the good life
that God promised to His children--- those who obey Him. It is true that the
Lord wanted us to succeed in life; but not in our own ways and plans, but in
His. Just as the Lord promised His people in the Old Covenant a “land flowing
with milk and honey”, the Lord, in his New Covenant, also promises all His
children a blessed life if we will only seek God (Matthew 6: 31-34).
Now,
God hates pride (Proverbs 8:13). Pride keeps a person from admitting his
wrongs. Pride keeps a person from saying sorry, and also from forgiving. In
Matthew 5:21-25, Jesus is teaching us that we should not be overwhelmed with
pride, rather be open to repent from whatever we did from others. And he is
teaching us that we should humble ourselves in repentance to God to be forgiven
from our sins (Luke 13:1-3). All have sinned, nobody sinned less or sinned
more, the bottom line is still the same, that we are all sinners (Romans 3:23)
and therefore needs to repent.
If
a person will say that, “he is sinning graver than me!” Isn’t it a proof of
pride? In Luke 18: 9-14, Jesus clearly showed that proud people, who believed
they are more righteous, are the ones who are really wrongdoers in the sight of
God. There may also be people who would say that they had not sinned against
God at all. That was definitely a boastful lie, and 1 John 1:8-9 says that the
person who says that doesn’t have the truth in him. Only the person who repents
will be forgiven.
As
you can see, there’s different kinds of pride, all of these though is dangerous
for our soul, and so we must evaluate our own hearts and look through the
intentions of it. And the best way to let go of pride, is to discover God’s
plans for us in His Word.
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