"Pride is God's most stubborn enemy! There is no sin so much like the devil as pride. It is a secret and subtle sin, and appears in a great many shapes which are undetected and unsuspected."- attributed to Jonathan Edwards in [i]Grace Gems for January 2005[/i]
_________________Christopher Joel Dandrow
Thiss a bit long for a quote but i didn't want to start a new thread and this seemed like a reasonable spot for this.What a mystery are you! "So I find this law at workWhen I want to do good, evil is right there with me." Rom. 7:21Are you not often a mystery to yourself?Warm one momentcold the next!Abasing yourself one hourexalting yourself the following!Loving the world, full of it, steeped up to your head in it todaycrying, groaning, and sighing for a sweet manifestation of the love of God tomorrow!Brought down to nothingness, covered withshame and confusion, on your knees before you leave your roomfilled with pride and selfimportance before you have got down stairs!Despising the world, and willing to give it all up for one taste of the love of Jesus when in solitudetrying to grasp it with both hands when in business!What a mystery are you! Touched by loveand stung with hatred! Possessing a little wisdomand a great deal of folly!Earthly mindedand yet having the affections in heaven! Pressing forwardand lagging behind!Full of slothand yet taking the kingdom with violence!And thus the Spirit, by a process which we may feel but cannot adequately describeleads us into themystery of the two natures perpetually struggling and striving against each other in the same bosom. So that one man cannot more differ from another,than the same man differs from himself. But the mystery of the kingdom of heaven is thisthat our carnal mind undergoes no alteration, but maintains a perpetual war with grace. And thus, the deeper we sink in self abasement under a sense of our vileness, the higher we rise in a knowledge of Christ, and the blacker we are in our own viewthe more lovely does Jesus appear.J. C. Philpot
_________________Doug Fussell