REPENTING AND RENOUNCING PRIDE AND SELF-CENTEREDNESS OF OURSELVES AND OUR LEADERS:
SCRIPTURES: Psalm 10:4 The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.
Proverbs 8:13 The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.
Proverbs 16:18-19 Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. 19 Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.
2 Chronicles 32:25-26 But Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him; for his heart was lifted up: therefore there was wrath upon him, and upon Judah and Jerusalem.
26 Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of the LORD came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah.
Ezekiel 28:17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
THOUGHT: The epitome of pride is found in Lucifer who became the Satan. He desired to be like God and in fact wanted to replace God.
He saw himself as a ruler over subordinates rather than a servant to God, to other angels or to humanity. He thought of himself as wiser than God, his Creator, that he should be honored and worshiped, and so he rejected the counsel and correction of God. His pride led to his rebellion and his expulsion from the Kingdom of God. (See Isaiah 14:12-16; Ezekiel 28:11-19)
Pride is a result of a twisted way of thinking of oneself as superior and beyond reproach. It leads to deception and any other vice to advance and maintain its goal of superiority.
We must be sure to remain humble and rid ourselves of the evils of pride.
PRAYER: LORD, I humble myself before You today recognizing that Satan is the source of pride and seeing the evils that it has caused. I submit to humility and service in all my relationships with God and man. I repent for allowing pride to become a part of my life in any way. Forgive me for any time that I exalted myself above You or above my fellow men. Give me the grace to love mercy and walk humbly. In Jesus’ Name.
LORD, I pray for leaders in our nation that they will also recognize and repent for the evils of pride in politics, business, education, church and every faucet of our society. In Jesus’ Name.
Turn us around LORD, that we as a nation turn back to the source from which we came. Let it be a Sovereign work of Your own hand to turn this nation around. In Jesus’ Name. AMEN!
