The more we think on the word of God the more transformation happens. We renew our mind with the Word of God. Our hearts are going to transform because the Word of God is powerful. One thing that can change your life and mine is the Word of God. We had been discussing on how seeking God enables us to pursue holiness. We need to seek God with all of our hearts. We need to seek God not with half heartedness, not with extra time we have. We need to seek him like a lost diamond ring. We need to seek Him with everything that we have. The more we seek Him, the more we receive Him. The more we receive Him, the more we long for Him. It never ends.
In the process of seeking God, the second important step is humility. In Colossians 3:12 we read, “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;” We need to put on all these . All of this means humbleness. Holiness and all these go together. If we really seek holiness, we need to seek humility. Because God gives grace to the humble. God resists the proud. Isaiah 57:15 says “For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” If you are really longing for God to come into your life, what you need to put on is humbleness of spirit. If you have a longing heart, broken heart, if you are seeking God with all of your heart, when you say “Lord I need you, I need you in every area, I need you in my business, I need you in my family, I need you in everything, without you I am nothing"; when you have come to such a place and seek God, that is the spirit of humbleness; that is a broken and humble spirit. And God is there to revive the spirit of the humble. He will bring revival in your heart. God's Spirit will revive your heart. He is there to revive the hearts of the contrite ones. We use things but when they are broken we cannot do anything with it. But when our hearts are broken, God can turn it into a beautiful heart. He heals the broken heart. Nobody is a specialist in healing the broken heart. Even the world famous heart surgeon cannot heal a broken heart. But God can heal us.
What is the opposite of humility? Pride. Sometimes, even as Christians this is a problem. We think pride cannot hurt Christians. We all think Christians can never have pride in their hearts. Pride is the first sin in the universe. Pride can come for any person at anytime. You might be at the peak of your holiness, but pride can still enter into your life. In the Eden garden, where Adam and Eve lived, God told them not to eat the fruit. What was the first sin that came in the Garden of Eden? It was pride. Man thought he knows better than God. Man thought he can take better decisions than God. And Adam chose to eat the forbidden fruit. There was no sin earlier in the garden as it was a perfect place. But the sin of pride could enter even in a perfect environment. Pride is dangerous. In Proverbs 13:10 it says, “Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.” What is contention? Any quarrel, arguments, disturbances, anything related with life comes as a by-product of pride. Pride brings all contentions in families. It brings contention in our hearts. Your heart becomes restless, confused and unhappy because of pride. Your heart will become sick. In Isaiah 14: 13-14 it tells how the devil became the devil. “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.”, the devil said to himself. Prior to the sin of pride he was an angel. God created him as good. And when the devil thought to himself that he will be like God, he targeted God’s place. The consequence of pride is in the next verse - “ Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.” When you fall into pride, you are falling into hell. When you give your heart to pride you are in ending up in disaster. It brought a holy angel and took him down to the pit of hell. That’s why it is bringing so much havoc in the world.
In Ezekiel 31:10-11, we read, “Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because thou hast lifted up thyself in height, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height; I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness.” The moment we get into pride we will be delivered into the hands of the mighty one. Who is the mighty one? The devil. When your heart is filled with pride and deception, God has to deliver us to the might one. God has no other choice. Because Pride is hell. Judas was handed over to the devil. Judas was tormented. The root of love of money is all evil but the seed all evil is pride. The Bible says, “pride comes before a fall”. Anytime when we have a fall in our Christian life, we might be exhibiting pride in our lives. In II Peter 2: 4-5 Peter warns his people saying, “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;” The Bible says, God did not spare the angels when they committed mistakes. God is not a partial God. God is just, righteous and holy. From God no one can get away with any sin. Especially when it is pride, when people committed sin, God did not spare the whole world. The floods came and destroyed everybody except for Noah and his family.
In Daniel 4:13-16 says, “I saw in the visions of my head while on my bed, and there was a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven. He cried aloud and said thus: Chop down the tree and cut off its branches; Strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit. Let the beasts get out from under it, and the birds from its branches Nevertheless leave the stump and roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze,In the tender grass of the field. Let it be wet with the dew of heaven, and let him graze with the beasts on the grass of the earth. Let his heart be changed from that of a man, Let him be given the heart of a beast, and let seven times pass over him.”
I want to explain a little bit of this verse. Babylon was a great kingdom. The king of Babylon was Nebuchadnezzar. And in a vision seen by Nebuchadnezzar, he sees a vision of all the leaves being chopped off from a tree. Pride can bring down a man. If you read the whole 4th chapter of Daniel you can see God is warning you and me. It is not just for Nebuchadnezzar that only a great king can get pride. Even a small kid can get pride. All of us are prone to it. We need to be diligent in seeking God. We need to ask for His grace to protect us from the sin of pride. The sin of pride has terrific consequences. Any other sin can be forgiven but for the sin of pride there is punishment. If we fall into pride, God will resist the pride. But He gives grace to the humble.
In Luke 18:11-12 it says, “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.” Look at the righteousness of the Pharisees. He says “I” have no sin. God did not hear his prayer. God did not hear the prideful. If we see the next two verses, Luke 18: 13-14, “And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”
The humble will always be exalted. When you humble yourself in the sight of God, He will exalt you in the right way. God gives grace to the humble. In II Corinthians 11:3 it says, “But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” Paul was a great man of God and he worried for his people. He preached the Gospel and many heard the Gospel and got saved. But still he was worried about them because Satan can come and corrupt the simplicity. Simplicity is humility. When humility is corrupted, Satan can easily take-over anyone. Pride will come subtly and it corrupts the mind. The interesting part about pride is, we might think we are humble when we are proud. We might not know that we are in pride. We might be aware of other sins, but not pride. We might be blind to it. Nobody can convict that you have pride. Because it will make you angry. No one can help a prideful person. Even God cannot help. That is why, God resists the pride. In Daniel 4, Nebuchadnezzar became like a beast. His life was miserable. For seven years, God had to leave him alone. He became humble and found there is a king above. He knew that there is a King of Kings ruling this earth. When you fall into pride, it might takes many years to come out of it like the king Nebuchadnezzar. You might attend church, worship God, and have fellowship but your heart will be so sick and thirsty so weak and rigid. We need to humble ourselves. We need to cry to God.
Colossians 2:18 says, “Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,” You can really act humble or behave humble but your heart can have pride. We can have deep pride in our hearts and also act humbly. That is the bigger deception. When a proud man thinks he is humble, it is the biggest danger. It is better to know if we are proud or not. Pride is a snare. A snare is kept for a person who isn't aware. In I Samuel 18: 6-8 we read, “And it came to pass as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet king Saul, with tablets, with joy, and with instruments of music. And the women answered one another as they played, and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him; and he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom?” Someone got more appreciation than Saul should have and Saul got into pride. He got into a big snare. In the next verse I Samuel 18: 9 we read, “And Saul eyed David from that day and forward.” Saul was suspicious and jealous of David from that day on”. The immediate effect of pride is jealousy, suspicion. In I Samuel 18: 10 -11, it says, “And it came to pass on the morrow, that the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied in the midst of the house: and David played with his hand, as at other times: and there was a javelin in Saul's hand. And Saul cast the javelin; for he said, I will smite David even to the wall with it. And David avoided out of his presence twice.”
The next consequence of pride after jealousy and suspicion comes, is the evil spirit taking over a prideful person. God allows him to Satan. Saul started to hurt people. We start to hurt people without our knowledge. Our empathy and compassion will go down. Our hearts will become hardened, sick and angry. A proud person is an angry person. The Bible says Saul was angry with David. One of the sign we have pride is anger. Anger is a sure manifestation of pride. When we have real anger we need to repent. We need to work on it. We cannot live in it and condone and be okay to live with it. The moment we think it is okay to be angry, sometimes we tend to give excuse saying even Jesus got angry. He was Holy to be angry. Our anger is different from the anger of Jesus. Let it never be the excuse for you and me.
In Proverbs 21:24, we read, “Proud and haughty scorner is his name, who dealeth in proud wrath.” Wrath is anger. A proud person is an angry person. We can get angry quickly for no reason. We need to cry to God everyday till we come out of anger and pride. A reaction to a pressurized situation can be a doorway to pride. When you react on your own flesh, you will get into pride. Never react in the flesh. The devil will orchestrate conditions in your life where you have to react and you have to get angry. He will justify saying you are right. You will feel like it is your birth right to defend yourself. Most of us we do that and we get into bigger trouble. If you start fighting, God will stop fighting for you. If you stop, God will fight for you. You stand still and see the salvation of God. God will repay the vengeance. You do not need to react. Be humble. God will work for you. If you see in the Bible, most of the cases of reaction are under pressure. Saul was under pressure and he reacted. So many people were under pressure and reacted foolishly. And pride can manifest in self pity. It is not anger alone, but also manifests in self pity. Pride comes in subtle forms. It comes not only in arrogance but also in self-pity, inferiority complex, fear; all of this can be pride. In I Samuel 22:8 Saul says in self-pity, “That all of you have conspired against me, and there is none that sheweth me that my son hath made a league with the son of Jesse, and there is none of you that is sorry for me, or sheweth unto me that my son hath stirred up my servant against me, to lie in wait, as at this day?” Saul was in pride and now he is in self pity. Can you see the flip? Pride can also manifest in dissatisfaction. Whatever people do, we might never be satisfied. We think “I need to be taken care of more. I deserve more. I need more attention” God is good to you. God is taking good care of you. He is amazingly guiding you. He has given everything for you. But still a proud person can be dissatisfied. Sometimes dissatisfaction can be a manifestation of pride. We need to humble ourselves. We need to thank God for all the goodness and be content.
In Ecclesiastes 7:8, “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.” We need to be patient in our spirit. In Psalms 34:2 it says, “My soul shall make her boast in the Lord: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad.” The Humble people are very glad. The benefit of humility is huge. We talked about the judgements of pride but if you see the other side, the beauty of humility is so wonderful that we will long for it. Humility is so beautiful and very attractive. Humility is so powerful.