Daily Devotional for Saturday December 4, 1999

Pride

(Proverbs 16:18)

Pride (ego) and the fall. I have come to realize that the majority of people who are getting these devotionals each day are very intelligent, mature, and gifted. Many are what society would call overachievers and successful. That is why today, I want to give you a warning from God's word to help you from having to endure some of God's "tough love" we read about in Hebrews 12. First of all, there is nothing wrong with being ambitious, driven, people of achievement. The trouble comes when our priorities are out of place and our efforts are more focused on what the world expects from us, and not so much what God expects. Let me remind you, the gifts, talents, and intelligence God gave you was for the ultimate purpose of serving and glorifying Him. There are so many ways God uses us, and in may cases He allows us success in "the world" in order to serve Him better. Again, I am in no way condemning success in the world we live in. We need more driven Christians who are successful in order to use all of the resources..finances, man-power, influence, creativity....to further the Kingdom. I am only trying to get you to stop for just a second to revisit where your priorities are and if you are overachieving in the world and underachieving for the Lord.

The Bible, history, daily life gives us unlimited examples of people falling who are successful. That fall can ultimately be traced back to their ego and pride. It is one of satan's greatest plots against God's most gifted children. It is an easy trap to fall into. At a certain point, you think all of your success is because of you and forget it is only because of God. You start to believe you are in total control of the "world" you have created, being reminded how little control you really have when your spouse leaves, your children are in trouble, people close to you die, you find out you have major health problems, and a multitude of things you have absolutely NO CONTROL over. God blessed me in so many ways, but after a period of so much rebellion, He took mercy on me and allowed me to fall in order to build me back into what He wanted. You see, that is where pride, the "first sin," since it was because of pride Lucifer was cast out of heaven, becomes deadly. We end up in control of so much of the world we live in and are so good at it, we start to act like we can do a better job at being God than God can. As much as you may think you are, you are not omniscient, you are not omnipotent, and you are not omnipresent. You are not God!

I was led to write this devotional today because there are many successful people who need to hear this warning. There are many students reading this devotional that need to learn early how to prioritize their life. Success in the world is tremendous, but at the expense of being successful for God it is not worth it. Why trade success for a day, when you can be successful for eternity? I love you, care about you, and sometimes have been criticized for not being more upbeat, more pleasant in the things I write each day. The trouble is, I am one of the most upbeat people you will ever know, and what I write is all based not on my words, but on His. Too many want to read the promises and gloss over the warnings. It is like driving down the street and going thru the green lights and ignoring the red lights. You may do it a few times, but eventually it will catch up with you and the results could be deadly. You are committing spiritual suicide by not heeding to the many warnings God has placed in His Word to protect you, mostly from yourself.

I will be praying for you today. This is a great warning for everyone, but there are some who need this word desperately today. My prayer is that you adopt a plan I have been using for the last 10 years. On my mirror in the bathroom, the first thing I see every morning is the verse out of John, "without me you can do nothing." My prayer every morning is that I never forget that without Him, I am able to do nothing that will stand the test of eternity. I have found that when I humble myself before Him, it become much easier to humble myself before people.