Overcoming Pride

I will remove from your midst your proud exalting ones and you will never be haughty again in my holy mountain. But I will leave among you the humble and lowly and they will take refuge in the name of the Lord. I know that this verse at least refers to a group of people but what if, what does somebody like me do when I know I have so much pride within me? What do I do? I should have, I clearly should have been thrown out of the church long time ago. I should have been sifted like that rock. But I took hope from the story of Peter who when he was about, when Jesus was about to go to the cross, Jesus said, Peter said, everybody else will deny you but I won't. And Jesus said, you're going to be sifted. And like that strainer, I praise God that what came out of it was not the rocks but the purity of Peter that came through it. That when Jesus asked him and he restored him in John 21, now do you love me more than these other disciples do? Peter says, no, I'm not going to say anything about anybody else. Gone is my spirit of comparison. Gone is me saying I'm better than John, I'm better than Andrew. I love you but I don't want to talk about more than these. I'm not here to compare myself to anybody else. A few days earlier he was ready to compare himself that he's better than every one of the other disciples that he wouldn't and he fell. But that's what the Lord gripped me with that there's a spirit of humility that draws out all of the spirit of comparison so that I don't seek to love God more than anybody else. I just seek to love God. Time's up. Thank you.