Scripture:
“Give all your worried and cares to God, for He cares about you.” 1 Peter 5:7 NLT
“Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.” 2 Corn 7:14
” Since they thought it fullish to acknowledge God, He abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives become full of every kind of wickedness…” Rom 1: 28-29
Thought:
So this week, I battled with pride again, that sin will creep up on you without realizing. One can display pride in so many different way; you can pride in your achievements, in your culture, where you come from but pride is a sin when it is haughty (having or showing an attitude of superiority and contempt for people or things perceived to be inferior) or disdainful (full of or expressing contempt for someone or something regarded as unworthy or inferior). My experience with pride this week was definitely haughtiness towards GOD. Yup, I said it, I thought I was better than Him in the handling of my daily life. Now come on, don’t act like you haven’t done that; because if you make decisions without first consulting your creator; you have displayed the sin of haughtiness.
I woke up one morning this week with the song, “Slower I go” by SEU worship playing in my head; I figured, clearly the Lord needs to me to listen to this song. I put on my headphones and listen to it while in bed. Immediately, my eyes started to secrete this clear liquid (basically, I started crying) without my permission. Then I started to ask God what is going on; the longer I laid there thinking of what the issue could be, I also started feeling pressure of the weight of all the responsibilities I have on my shoulder because the longer I laid there the more I am getting behind on my schedule for the day but I couldn’t move and mind you, by this time, I am in full cry mode. However, in the middle of my cry, the Holy Spirit spoke oy my spirt and reminded me that the responsibilities aren’t my burden to carry and that I need to bring them to the Lord. Then it hit me, I have not been spending time in the presence of God; I have not been spending intimate time with daddy God and in that moment, it occurred to me, I am operating out of pride again. How dare I think I can control how my day goes based on my timed schedule. In moment, i understood what my pastors have been saying all this time, “You cannot live life, without connecting with God EVERY SINGLE DAY. It is IMPOSSIBLE to go on with your day without having a silent moment with just you and Him is His presence.” When you choose to not spend the 10 mins with Him because of whatever responsibilities or pleasures, you are telling God, my responsibilities are more important you and I know what I am doing. All that is pride. You have to connect with the source of life in order to live life FULLY with no lack, no burden, no pressure.
2 Chron 7:14 says, “My people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.” When you are in the family of God, you are now HIS people; He is now responsible for you. All things concerning you now also concerns Him. When you are His people, you will humble yourself. How? by praying and seeking HIS face AND turn from your wicked ways (which is to repent). When you do this, God, HIMSELF, will hear from heaven and WILL forgive your sins AND RESTORE your land. This means, when you were in your wicked ways (sinning), he couldn’t hear you and couldn’t forgive you and your land (prayers, your works) were baren. Why does this happen? It is due to wickedness against God. You are HIS person, you belong to HIM; so me choosing my responsibilities over spending time with God was pure wickedness BUT, I humbled myself, I prayed and sought the face of God. Guess what He did? He restored my land (ME) because at the end of that day, I felt so much lighter, I had an extra measure of patience with towards everything and everybody. I also had so much energy; I had to work out at 11 pm to burn some of that energy before going to go to bed.
1 Peter 5:7 says, “Give all your worried and cares to God, for He cares about you.” How can you give Him your worried and cares if you don’t take the time to talk to Him? You have to share with God all that is in your heart, that requires you to communicate; speak (pray). You can’t do that, if you are always on go or always busy with life. Remember hat saying ” stop and smell the roses” that is what time God is like.
However, in Rom 1: 28-29, the bible gives a stern warning on what happens if we choose NOT to humble ourselves, “Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, He abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives become full of every kind of wickedness…” but in the end of verse 27 it says “… they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.” If you choose to be stubborn and not acknowledge God, (by pray, and seek His face and repent), the Lord WILL leave you to do all the things BUT there is hope; God is patient and loving; He will allow situations to happen to nudge you close to Him or bringing people into your life to plant seeds and water the seed. God is ALWAYS patiently waiting for you to pray to Him, seek Him and change from your wicked way.
Pride is something we must fight against every minute of every day and the only way we do that is by acknowledging and knowing in our heart of hearts that we NEED God and cannot do life without Him.
In Eden 