October 16

“If you find yourself falling into sinful habits or not grieving over your sin as you once did, this indicates that you are not abiding in Christ.  Return to Him in repentance; restore your fellowship with Him; and you will once again experience victory over your sin.”  H. Blackaby, Experiencing God Day-by-Day, 9/26

This is hard because we don’t want to admit we’re wrong.  If we can blame someone else for our sins, then perhaps we will come to God.  Unfortunately, He can’t help us under those conditions.  The only way we can experience victory over our sins is to own them--to take full responsibility for them.  This in itself is a humbling experience and therefore opens the door to us to God’s throne.  Pride is our greatest enemy because it keeps us engaged in the blame game.  To be wrong is perceived to be weak and when we are weak we are afraid.  Making mistakes in our society is frowned upon.  It seems the Press lies in wait for celebrities to make even the slightest mistake so they can announce it to the world as some huge failure.  This couldn’t be if we, the public, hadn’t already put these people up on a pedestal where they are expected to be perfect.  This is what pride does to us--it puts our egos up on a pedestal where we dare not appear imperfect in any way.  We go to great lengths to give the appearance of being right about everything, but because we know we aren’t we are very insecure.  This causes all sorts of self-defeating behaviors that only serve to draw us deeper into dependence on Self and further away from God.

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace; but with the humble is wisdom.”  Proverbs 11:2