Pride, Humility and the Pursuit of God

Whenever we are compelled by God to seek Him for His full intention to be realized, many

changes will occur. We must be prepared to remain flexible in His hands so we will be

cooperative with His Spirit in all things. Let us look together at some of the workings of God in

our hearts when we truly begin to call on His name for a deeper unveiling of His heart. As we

behold Him, beloved, we cannot help but see the utter beauty and mystery of true humility, as

seen in the demonstration of God's act of lowering Himself in the Person of His Son, as the

Lamb of God. We cannot help but see our own pride up against His amazing humility; how

unspeakable are its depths! He has been waiting, from the beginning creation, to see the full

expression of Himself in all His humility in His beloved, bride, the church. When the church is

arrayed with the the very likeness of Christ's humility, He will arise as the Morning Star in the

assembly of those whom He is not ashamed to call brothers, nor ashamed to confess before

His Father! Indeed, the great might that broke the back of Satan is the presentation of the

Lamb of God, and this presentation of the Lamb in the last hour at His appearing will break the

back of Satan again, making good what has already been done at Calvary.

Only the brokenness of the Lamb being etched into our lives will satisfy God's heart and

display His true humility. True humility is not an act but a Person! How deeply we need greater

light and apprehension to be able to see the glory and humility of God and to be able to seek

Him that we may come into conformity to this Lamb likeness in every nook and cranny of our

lives!! He is able if we will bow and bend before His ever present beauty in our lives and

through His Word!! Pride is self-hood inflated with pride and arrogance. Humility is God's

nature seen in the Man Christ Jesus, first seen in the Head, eventually made manifest in His

body and, at the end, unveiled to the universe at His appearing. This self revelation of God's

humility as displayed in the Head and those who are organically one with Him will be the might

of God, the strength of God, yes, the very essence of God's awesome power that will displace

the evil powers in the heavens and break them to pieces!! Arise oh God, and let your enemies

be scattered and broken to pieces by the glory of your humility being revealed in your beloved

as she reflects from within the glory of the Head, who alone is blessed and deserving of honor,

power, authority, riches and majesty!!

Now, God seeks those who will go low enough in His presence, to renounce every form of

pride, every arrogant look, attitude and word, so low as to make room for the gentle Holy Spirit

to etch deeply into our spirits the genuine humility of the Lamb. God seeks in this age to reveal

this awesome humility to the powers in heavenly places by the church, as the manifold wisdom

of God. This display of God's humility cannot be overcome by any of Satan's many devices!

Hate, greed, pride, murder, or whatever other sin cannot stand in the presence of God's nature

seen in His Lamb revelation of Himself. Though our body be burned by beasts of this earth, or

torn apart by angry men, or sawed apart in pieces, nothing can overcome the power of this

love and humility in the Lamb. Evil governments can outlaw the name of Jesus, but that will not

stop Christ from building and perfecting His church. If we seek the lowest place at His feet we

can grow in our participation of the Lamb nature and nothing by any means will harm us or

morally destroy us, but in all things we can display the beauty of our God's moral glory! Being

governed by this heavenly Lamb nature in all our actions, deeds, words and thoughts will free

us from doing the will of Satan and bring joy to our Father's heart as He sees His very own

likeness being displaying amidst earth's moral darkness.

Let us ask God to search our lives and to uncover every hint of pride, every proud look or haughty gesture. There can be no hint of deception, falsehood or deceit in our words, actions or impressions we give to others or God's face will be against us in everything we do. Every judgment against another person that is not according to truth but springing out of pride must be exposed and forsaken. Each word that comes from our mouth that springs out of an arrogant attitude must be confessed and forsaken.

Every plan, every desire, every dream and aspiration that is born from pride or misguided motives cannot live, but must be exposed in His light and forever forsaken! Then, as we see ourselves as He sees us, stripped from the entanglements of our own pride, we can clearly find a spot at His nail scared feet and find grace and mercy to hunger for His Spirit's fullness. We cannot know His fullness until we are delivered from loving our own fullness and seeking after that instead of His.

We cannot be filled with God's love and humility until we are emptied from our own pride and taste for our our own satisfactions. Our words often do not reflect our true desire for God. We say, "all for your glory God" when in fact often all is not for His glory but for our own glory! God must expose this to us so we can repent, as Job did, and find a fresh revelation of seeing God with a pure heart. Often we see God through our tainted motives as a means to obtain what we want.

Only when we are brought to nothing and no longer seek God for something, but only for Him can we begin to know Him as He longs for us to. This is the meaning of seeing God with a pure heart. When we see Him with a pure heart, we see only Him, want only Him and long for only Him, and no longer see Him with the hidden motive of wanting to use Him for our own purposes! Being desperate for God is born out of despairing because of seeing how far we are from being like our blessed God because of His loving chastening in our lives.

Peter, blessed as he was, when catching a glimpse of the moral majesty of the Lord Jesus, cried out saying, "Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man." Oh, blessed revelation that came to Peter's heart. We too must see more and more our desperate need as Peter did and how unlike our Lord we truly are, if we are to hunger and thirst for Him, since only those who are hungering and thirsting for Him will be filled! To hunger and thirst is a phrase used to describe a person who is starving for food and on the verge of dying because of no water!

Do we feel this desperate for God and His Son? Do we know that unless He is our life, our hope and our very source of living, we will never make it and will fail Him and bring shame to His name? May God awaken in us a deep cry for Him and may we be willing to bend before Him in all things, admitting our need, our sins and failures and in doing so find mercy and help at His feet! Do we see ourselves as Peter saw himself, as sinful men apart from Him? Do we only confess this as our theology or have we come to see this by a deep work of God?

Many of us have only come to accept this as good theology but yet need to come into the good of its truth! God says when he chastens a man to expose his deepest strands of pride and lawlessness, all his own beauty fades from his eyes. This blessed man that sees himself as God sees him forever gives up on himself, forever forsakes and resists the temptation to trust in his own moral goodness or works. The beauty he once perceived in the mirror of his spiritual glance of himself and all his imagined great obedience to God and example of being a good Christian, is marred beyond repair and it becomes nauseating to look into such a mirror anymore!

This man's eyes are forever on the blessed Lamb of God and he boasts, no longer in himself, but in the goodness, obedience, moral beauty and radiant glory of the Lamb alone! It is the mention of His name alone that brings delight to His ailing heart that has found peace in the blood of Christ and rest at His feet! Yes, He loves us so much but hates our pride and will not support it or anything that it reaches for. May we find the freedom to admit that He hates our pride and is against it while at the same time find rest in knowing He loves us and will never forsake us.

Though He seeks to deliver us from our pride, He at the same time is drawing us to Himself so that we grasp for Him alone! Therefore, let us draw near to God and He will draw near to us! Let us be prepared, as we draw close to Him to be stripped from everything that is unlike Him and let us be prepared to let go of many things that have become to us as gods and idols. Also, we must be prepared, at His leading, to confess any bitterness we may be harboring toward any person, any smoldering resentment or an unforgiving spirit.

But equally, let us be prepared during this process of stripping and pain to enjoy the bliss of a fresh unveiling of God Himself and marvel as He awakens in us a renewed passion to seek Him alone, with no strings attached, no human agenda that is for our own selfish ends! This is God's highest purpose, to have a family that loves Him and is after Him for Him alone, with no ulterior motives! He alone is all I want and need! Before I wanted peace, but now just Him. Before I wanted success but now just Him.

Before I wanted healing but now just Him. Before I wanted the approval of men but now just Him. Before I wanted material things and the joy that comes from them but now just Him. Before I wanted my toys to play with, my freedom to enjoy myself, my space to have peace, but now, just Him! This is how we will think when we are disciplined by His loving hand and our hearts are laid bare before Him and He allures us to Himself! Before we came to God for things to enjoy; for ministry, for guidance, but now we come for Him alone and trust Him to work out everything for His highest purpose and pleasure! Before we wanted to do something for Him, now we want Him alone and seek to do only His bidding!