pride

Three Main Blocks to Your Healing and Freedom

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As I walk with people, I have noticed 3 major blocks to healing and freedom. These 3 main blocks are like umbrellas that cover us and keep us from truth raining down to seep into our heads and hearts.

Instead, they cover us in lies…

Here are the 3 main blocks:

Pride. : We then become self-serving, self- preserving, and self-exalting. Examples: proud of our sexual orientation, our countries (nationalism), even our church denominations (building our own kingdoms rather than God’s). It all leads to idolatry and slavery, not freedom. Pride is often a strong indicator of our deep hurt or fear. We instead need healing and deliverance.

Prejudice. : We have made up our minds before we hear facts. We are narrow, arrogant and destructive in our thinking.

Preconception. : We think we know something and presume a clear picture in our heads.

How to test if you are stuck in these?

a.) If you are agitated by any of these listed above, you probably operate in these strongholds.

b.) If you do not experience love, joy, peace, patience etc… but instead anger, bitterness, resentment, jealousy or envy, you probably have one of these strongholds.

These 3 major strongholds will continue to block healing and freedom in your life.

Ask yourself:

-What have these 3 blocks done to my relationships?
-How have they affected how I feel about myself?

Ask God:  

-What do you say about me and my situation?
-What good thing do you want to give me in my life instead of these blocks that are stealing, killing, and destroying me?

*Make sure your answers agree with the Word of God from the Bible and with God’s heart of compassion for you.

How do you dismantle these blocks or strongholds?

1.) Humble yourself. Surrender your heart, will, mind, and emotions to God – the source of love, healing and freedom. (James 4:10).

2.) Repent. Tell God – “I need you God. Apart from you, I am nothing. I choose to turn from these lies. I nail them to the cross and I turn to you Jesus. I want to receive instead your love, joy, peace, patience, kindness etc – all the fruits of your Spirit. (John 10:10; John 15; Galatians 5; 1 John 1:9).

3.) Replace lies with God’s Truth. Jesus is the Truth. Invite Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth to come and fill you and replace the lies. Read His Word to get to know who God is and how He loves you. He desires you to be free! So much so, He sent Jesus to die and defeat your sin, death, sorrows and weaknesses. (John 3:16; John 14; Isaiah 53).

Stuck and need help walking through this?

I’d be honoured to help you see what rich inheritance God has for you instead!

Learn more…

Why is Anxiety About the Future a Form of Pride? (John Piper)

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“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:6–7)

Why is anxiety about the future a form of pride?

God’s answer would sound something like this:

I — the Lord, your Maker — I am he who comforts you, who promises to take care of you; and those who threaten you are mere men who die. So your fear must mean that you do not trust me — and even though you are not sure that your own resources will take care of you, yet you opt for fragile self-reliance, rather than faith in my future grace. So all your trembling — weak as it is — reveals pride.

The remedy? Turn from self-reliance to God-reliance, and put your faith in the all-sufficient power of future grace.

We see anxiety as a form of pride in 1 Peter 5:6–7. Notice the grammatical connection between the verses…

“Humble yourselves . . . under the mighty hand of God . . . [verse 7] casting all your anxieties on him.” Verse 7 is not a new sentence. It’s a subordinate clause. “Humble yourselves . . . [by] casting all your anxieties on him.”

This means that casting your anxieties on God is a way of humbling yourself under God’s mighty hand. It’s like saying, “Eat politely . . . chewing with your mouth shut.” “Drive carefully . . . keeping your eyes open.” “Be generous . . . inviting someone over on Thanksgiving.”

One way to be humble is to cast all your anxieties on God. Which means that one hindrance to casting your anxieties on God is pride. Which means that undue worry is a form of pride.

Now why is casting our anxieties on the Lord the opposite of pride? Because pride does not like to admit that it has any anxieties. And if pride has to admit it, it still does not like to admit that the remedy might be trusting someone else who is wiser and stronger.

In other words, pride is a form of unbelief and does not like to trust in God’s future grace. Faith admits the need for help. Pride won’t. Faith banks on God to give help. Pride won’t. Faith casts anxieties on God. Pride won’t.

Therefore the way to battle the unbelief of pride is to admit freely that you have anxieties, and to cherish the promise of future grace in the words, “He cares for you.”

Excerpt from:
Future Grace, John Piper, pages 94–95

(Reading for March 9 from Desiring God’s Daily Devotional app, which features the best of over 30 years of John Piper’s teaching to your everyday life and satisfaction in Jesus. Download it for free in the app store.)

Fearless One Minute, Freaking Out the Next

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“Whether you deny Jesus in what you do or don’t do, he forgives and restores you as he did Peter.”

I shared this above with a friend and she replied…

“That was fantastic!!! Thank you for sharing! I love all your ‘Peter’ moments! What an honour to know that you (we) will rise and fall, but that our Father is there EVERY TIME to pick us up, dust us off and praise us, sending us back on course.

You are beloved! Your energy is contagious as it exudes the love of our Father! I LOVE that about you! You share that same twinkle in your eye that your Dad has. Captivating, inviting, loving and spunky! Don’t ever change! I love you, just the way you are!!!”

Wow, I certainly have found a friend who has Christ’s love in her heart. May we all be so blessed. May we be that friend.

May we also know that we can be freaking out one minute, turn to Jesus and He makes us fearless!

 

Be Who You Are

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So many of us cavalierly gloss over what God has done and zero in on what we’re to do, and that shift, though it might seem slight, makes all the difference in the world. Our obedience has its origin in God’s prior action, and forgetting that truth results in self-righteousness, pride, and despair.

Read… Be Who You Are: Indicative & Imperative | The Resurgence.

The Greatest Value to God

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I just read: “Servanthood, humility, caring for the weak, and childlike open-heartedness are of the greatest value. Spiritual posturing, self-righteousness, and pride will keep you out of God’s kingdom.” – Erin Gieschen from the article entitled, “The Mystery of the Bad Fig Tree: And It’s Baffling But Brillian Parable.”

Pride Leads to Destruction

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I remember once playing a card game with a great Aunt and I was winning and gloating. She said to me: “Pride leads to destruction” and sure enough I lost the game. It was a lesson for me to not count my chickens before they hatched but to also seek humility. It’s a struggle for many of us and I think it can get worse as we get older. I see the pride of former and current leaders getting in their way and slowly they lose their influence and the respect of others. God is a jealous God and if we take credit for our blessings, we are in danger of pride and arrogance and possibly God’s punishment.

This morning I read in 2 Chron 32:24-26…

24 Some time later Hezekiah became deathly sick. He prayed to God and was given a reassuring sign.

25-26 But the sign, instead of making Hezekiah grateful, made him arrogant. This made God angry, and his anger spilled over on Judah and Jerusalem. But then Hezekiah, and Jerusalem with him, repented of his arrogance, and God withdrew his anger while Hezekiah lived.

Proverbs 16:5,18…

5 God can’t stomach arrogance or pretense;
believe me, he’ll put those upstarts in their place.

18 First pride, then the crash—
the bigger the ego, the harder the fall.

Just read the life of King Saul and that’s a perfect example of taking credit and trying to take God’s place…

After Samuel anointed Saul as king, Samuel instructed the young ruler to travel to Gilgal where he was to wait seven days for the prophet’s arrival before the offering of sacrifices to God.

Saul went to the appointed place, but he grew impatient when Samuel had not arrived on the seventh day. He then offered the sacrifices himself (1 Samuel 13:8ff), and gave excuses for this sin when the prophet arrived. In disobeying Samuel’s charge, Saul had, in point of fact, disobeyed God (13:13).

James 5:1-3…

1-3 And a final word to you arrogant rich: Take some lessons in lament. You’ll need buckets for the tears when the crash comes upon you. Your money is corrupt and your fine clothes stink. Your greedy luxuries are a cancer in your gut, destroying your life from within. You thought you were piling up wealth. What you’ve piled up is judgment.

What things in your life do you claim all credit for?

Claiming all credit is ridiculous and destructive to yourself and those around you. Offer your pride to God and seek His forgiveness. Pray: “less of me Father and more of you. Help me to be faithful and humble and when others see me succeed that they would praise you and not me! Amen.”