(John Bevere) God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.
I want you to listen to the words, God resists the proud.
Can you im.
. . I mean the Bible says we're supposed to resist the devil.
Now I think of what happens when I'm resisting the devil, I get really bold and strong, right?
Can you imagine God resisting us?
Why?
Because we've become proud, we've taken him out of the picture.
But he gives grace to the humble.
What's grace?
His empowerment.
So now we actually have the ability to be more effective if we would just stay humble.
(John Shiver) Grace is by definition a larger word than that.
It is a gift.
It's also an empowerment.
It is something given by God that enables and
empowers and gives us strength and wisdom.
To do exploits that we would not ordinarily be
able to do in our own talent and our own ability.
God cannot trust a proud man, a proud woman.
But he can trust a person that is yielded and
secure in who they are or who he is.
And to that person he can give the enablement, and the gift and the grace, and the power.
And can trust them with authority to do the thing
that God wants them to do that he'd be glorified.
(John Bevere) Pride is the attitude that I can
do this.
And I'll do it whether God helps me or not.
Now you'll never add that part into your conscious thinking, but you have the attitude, I'll
make it happen.
(John Shiver) I believe that the origin of pride
in people grows out of insecurity and fear and
of intimidation.
We feel like we've got something that we've got
to prove.
And out of that insecurity, out of that fear, we
try to say well I can do this or I can do that.
In order to advertise the image that we want to project of ourselves to others, trying
to prove something that really does not require being
proved.
If we know who we are.
If we're settled and confident in who we are.
In Jesus we don't really have to be any more than
who we are in him.
(John Bevere) If you look at Lucifer, he was anointed, he was the worship leader of Heaven.
One day he failed to realize that what he had,
God gave him.
That he was a created being.
Everything he had, God had given him.
Every ability he had, every ability to lead people in worship and in the presence of God
was given to him and created.
And so he started looking at that and forgot who God was.
And so what happens is, is true humility always keeps God in the forefront of
anything we are and anything we do.
However, pride takes God out of the picture.
I have witnessed so many times in ministry.
Ministers say I didn't see this coming.
I didn't realize I had slipped into this.
They are in a situation that is very destructive.
Obvious to other people but yet they said they
didn't see it coming.
What happened?
They got into pride.
Pride is the number one, number one, killer of ministries in the body of Christ.
(John Shiver) I think the, I think the best way
is just to live a life reverential fear and respect
and just say Holy Spirit be real to me.
Holy spirit speak to me.
Holy spirit you seek what I don’t seek.
You know me better than I know myself.
And you work out the nature of Jesus, the heart
of Jesus in my heart.
And make my Christ-like.
Convict me, lead me, guide me.
I yield, I surrender, I don’t want what I want.
I want what you want.