(Proverbs 16:18)
Pride (ego) and the fall. I have come to realize that the majority of people
who are getting these devotionals each day are very intelligent, mature, and
gifted. Many are what society would call overachievers and successful. That
is why today, I want to give you a warning from God's word to help you from
having to endure some of God's "tough love" we read about in Hebrews 12.
First of all, there is nothing wrong with being ambitious, driven, people of
achievement. The trouble comes when our priorities are out of place and our
efforts are more focused on what the world expects from us, and not so much
what God expects. Let me remind you, the gifts, talents, and intelligence God
gave you was for the ultimate purpose of serving and glorifying Him. There
are so many ways God uses us, and in may cases He allows us success in "the
world" in order to serve Him better. Again, I am in no way condemning
success in the world we live in. We need more driven Christians who are
successful in order to use all of the resources..finances, man-power,
influence, creativity....to further the Kingdom. I am only trying to get you
to stop for just a second to revisit where your priorities are and if you
are overachieving in the world and underachieving for the Lord.
The Bible, history, daily life gives us unlimited examples of people falling who are
successful. That fall can ultimately be traced back to their ego and
pride. It is one of satan's greatest plots against God's most gifted
children. It is an easy trap to fall into. At a certain point, you think
all of your success is because of you and forget it is only because of God.
You start to believe you are in total control of the "world" you have
created, being reminded how little control you really have when your spouse
leaves, your children are in trouble, people close to you die, you find out
you have major health problems, and a multitude of things you have absolutely
NO CONTROL over. God blessed me in so many ways, but after a period of so
much rebellion, He took mercy on me and allowed me to fall in order to build
me back into what He wanted. You see, that is where pride, the "first sin,"
since it was because of pride Lucifer was cast out of heaven, becomes deadly.
We end up in control of so much of the world we live in and are so good at
it, we start to act like we can do a better job at being God than God can. As
much as you may think you are, you are not omniscient, you are not
omnipotent, and you are not omnipresent. You are not God!
I was led to write this devotional today because there are many successful
people who need to hear this warning. There are many students reading
this devotional that need to learn early how to prioritize their life.
Success in the world is tremendous, but at the expense of being successful
for God it is not worth it. Why trade success for a day, when you can be
successful for eternity? I love you, care about you, and sometimes have been
criticized for not being more upbeat, more pleasant in the things I write each
day. The trouble is, I am one of the most upbeat people you will ever know,
and what I write is all based not on my words, but on His. Too many want to
read the promises and gloss over the warnings. It is like driving down the
street and going thru the green lights and ignoring the red lights. You may
do it a few times, but eventually it will catch up with you and the results
could be deadly. You are committing spiritual suicide by not heeding to the
many warnings God has placed in His Word to protect you, mostly from yourself.
I will be praying for you today. This is a great warning for everyone, but
there are some who need this word desperately today. My prayer is that you
adopt a plan I have been using for the last 10 years. On my mirror in the
bathroom, the first thing I see every morning is the verse out of John,
"without me you can do nothing." My prayer every morning is that I never
forget that without Him, I am able to do nothing that will stand the test of
eternity. I have found that when I humble myself before Him, it become much
easier to humble myself before people.
