A Quote by Mark Dever
Pride causes us to care more about what our non-Christian friends think of us than what God will do to them in their sin.
Related Quotes
Let us watch against pride in every shape - pride of intellect, pride of wealth, pride of our own goodness. Nothing is so likely to keep a person out of heaven, and prevent them from seeing Christ, as pride. So long as we think we are something we shall never be saved. Let us pray for and cultivate humility; let us seek to know ourselves correctly, and to find out our place in the sight of a holy God.
God did not create the strife between races, nor did He intend for it to be that way. Strife between races and ethnic groups comes from sin-and sin resides in the human heart. The Bible says, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?” (James 4:1). When one group or one race claims it is superior to another, pride has taken control-and pride is a sin.Instead, God wants us to learn to accept each other and love each other-and this becomes possible, as we turn our lives over to Christ and allow Him to change us from within.
Every day God patiently bears with us, and every day we are tempted to become impatient with our friends, neighbors, and loved ones. And our faults and failures before God are so much more serious than the petty actions of others that tend to irritate us! God calls us to graciously bear with the weaknesses of others, tolerating them and forgiving them even as He has forgiven us.
All these fine Christian-type people that seem to think they know what God wants for all of us, that's certainly more of a sin then anything they would claim about us. To judge people is one of the greatest sins.
Our first problem is that our attitude towards sin is more self-centred than God-centred. We are more concerned about our own "Victory" over sin than we are about the fact that our sin grieve the heart of God. We cannot tolerate failure in our struggle with sin chiefly because we are success oriented, not because we know it is offensive to God.
God wants us to speak to men so that they will feel it, so that they will never forget it. God means every Christian to be effective, to make a difference in the actual records and results of Christian work. God put each of us here to be a power. There is not one of us but is an essential wheel of the machinery and can accomplish all that God calls us to.
The real game of Bigger and Better that Jesus is playing with us usually isn't about money or possessions or even our hopes. It's about our pride. He asks if we'll give up that thing we're so proud of, that thing we believe causes us to matter in the eyes of the world, and give it up to follow Him. He's asking us, 'Will you take what you think defines you, leave it behind, and let Me define who you are instead?'
There are two gods. The god our teachers teach us about, and the God who teaches us. The god about whom people usually talk, and the God who talks to us. The god we learn to fear, and the God who speaks to us of mercy. The god who is somewhere up on high, and the God who is here in our daily lives. The god who demands punishment, and the God who forgives us our trespasses. The god who threatens us with the torments of Hell, and the God who shows us the true path.
There are two gods. A god who casts us off because of our sins, and a God who calls to us with His love.
True friends see who we really are, hear our words and the feelings behind them, hold us in the safe harbor of their embrace, and accept us as we are. Good friends mirror our best back to us, forgive us our worst, and believe we will evolve into wise, wacky, and wonderful old people. Dear friends give us their undivided attention, encourage us to laugh, and entice us into silliness. And we do the same for them. A true friend gives us the courage to be ourselves because he or she is with us always and in all ways. In the safety of such friendships, our hearts can fully open.
More than we care about their "success," vocation, or financial status, our hearts will be encouraged when our kids are faithful followers of Christ, and our hearts will be distressed when our kids appear to reject the Christian faith. So, the most important thing is transferring our kids' allegiance from us to Christ, raising faithful disciples who seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
Artificiality is one curse that will drop away the moment we kneel at Jesus' feet and surrender ourselves to His meekness. Then we will not care what people think of us so long as God is pleased. Then what we are will be everything; what we appear will take its place far down the scale of interest for us. Apart from sin we have nothing of which to be ashamed. Only an evil desire to shine makes us want to appear other than we are.
The more I thought about human nature, the more I saw how our tragic inclination for sin/mistakes causes us to use our minds to rationalize our action.
In the scriptures there is no such thing as righteous pride. It is always considered as a sin. We are not speaking of a wholesome view of self-worth, which is best established by a close relationship with God. But we are speaking of pride as the universal sin, as someone has described it. . . . Essentially, pride is a "my will" rather than "thy will" approach to life. The opposite of pride is humbleness, meekness, submissiveness, or teachableness.
Christian community is like the Christian's sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature.
Any pride or haughtiness, is displeasing to us, merely because it shocks our own pride, and leads us by sympathy into comparison, which causes the disagreeable passion of humility.
Some people think elections are a game: who's up or who's down. It's about our country. It's about our kids' future. It's about all of us together. Some of us put ourselves out there and do this against some difficult odds. We do it, each one of us, against difficult odds. We do it because we care about our country. Some of us are right, and some of us are not. Some of us are ready, and some of us are not. Some of us know what we will do on day one, and some of us haven't thought that through.
Related Authors
Brian D. McLaren Quotes
American
Pastor
Christine Caine Quotes
Australian
Pastor
Greg Laurie Quotes
American
Pastor
Jack Hyles Quotes
Indian
Pastor
James MacDonald Quotes
Canadian
Pastor
Johnny Hunt Quotes
American
Pastor
Joshua Harris Quotes
American
Pastor
Louie Giglio Quotes
American
Pastor
Mark Driscoll Quotes
American
Pastor
Steven Furtick Quotes
American
Pastor