My husband and I entered parenthood by choosing to become licensed foster parents. After walking through infertility, we sensed God calling us to a different story.
The stories of children in care were heartbreaking, and as we listened to them during our training, it was easy for us to puff ourselves up with pride. We falsely believed that we could do a much better job than the biological parents of the children in care.
But when three siblings showed up to our doorstep, all of our pride was completely crushed in the faces of children who needed more than we could give. We had nothing but our Savior to call upon in our time of need.
Blissful ignorance. That is what most of us prefer when it comes to our sins. We know we have blind spots, sure. But when it comes down to it, we can often excuse away our sins by rationalizing and comparing ourselves to others.
“It’s not that bad.” “At least I don’t do what she does.” But sin is sin. And God hates it. In our reading, Amos speaks on behalf of the Lord and says, “I loathe Jacob’s pride and hate his citadels, so I will hand over the city and everything in it” (Amos 6:8).
Amos shared a heavy message with the Israelites. As he pointed out their ignorance to the flagrant materialism of their society at the expense of others, he foretold God’s judgment against their pride by warning them of all that was to come.
Put yourself in the Israelites’ shoes for a moment, but bring this imagery into modern times. You are living a comfortable life and want for nothing. Your home is impeccable, and you have your dream job. You are well respected in your community and highly esteemed at your church. But you are far from God. You have mistaken your comfort for His blessing when He just wants your heart.
Proverbs 11:2 says, “When arrogance comes, disgrace follows, but with humility comes wisdom.” When we consider the lengths to which God has gone to pursue our hearts, we must remember that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).
The Israelites were wrong to attribute their worldly success to the blessing of their heavenly Father. My husband and I were wrong to assume we were better than our children’s biological parents. And we, as daughters of our heavenly Father, are wrong to allow pride to skew our view of the world around us and blind us to our sin. Let us humble ourselves before the Lord.
Praise Him! He gives us grace upon grace by allowing us to see our sins as we come to Him, ready to be conformed to the image of Christ.
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41 thoughts on "Judgment Against Pride"
One of the biggest sins in my life that the Lord has revealed in me is pride. God, please teach me humility.
Can really really relate here. I find myself puffed up with pride quite often. I think I’m in a season (if I’ll stay here) of being refined and it hurts. But i know He’s a gracious God and won’t let it be for nothing
That was soo good!
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Gal 2:20 (msg) – “Indeed I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central” and 1 Peter 5:6 (niv) “ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.”
“You have mistaken his comfort for his blessing when He just wants your heart.”
LORD God forgive my pride. Thank you for the truth of Your Word exposing the lies that take root in my sinful heart. Thank you for your continued grace & mercy. Thank you for Christ Jesus!!
Lord forgive my pride! Help me be humble and always remember I’m a sinner in need of a Savior!
“I’m starting with the man in the mirror. I’m asking him to change his ways. And no message could have been any clearer. If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change,” (“Man in the Mirror,” Michael Jackson). Father, forgive me of my pride. I need to change. Thank You for Your Word and the earworm songs of the past that won’t leave me alone as I read. “Change my heart, O God. Make it ever true. Change my heart, O God. May I be like You. For You are the Potter. I am the clay. Mold me and make me. This is what I pray.” Sincerely, Father, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51 & Keith Green)
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LEHUA K – You’re welcome! So good to see you back!!
SARAH D – CONGRATS on the double offers and praying you know beyond a shadow of a doubt which to choose.
Brings 1 Peter 5:6-7 to mind ❤️ Father, please forgive me for my pride & help me humble myself before You always! & I pray for Your presence and provision over all these ladies & their hearts and requests (spoken & unspoken), and Your blessing over the author of the devo!
Thinking about the lukewarm reference and a quote that showed up this morning before I got to the readings.
“The Church is full of almost Christians who have not gone all the way with Christ” -John Wesley.
The sin that so easily entangles me is being superficial, perfectionism, and thinking that when certain things are going my way I will be happy. When all of these things are happening I may be happy, but not truly joyful. I am only joyful when I am relying on my Heavenly Father to give me everything I need.
As a lifelong Christian it’s so easy to start relativizing my own sins in the grand scheme of “at least I don’t…”. God’s been teaching me about this and recently, He showed me that instead of comparing my sins to those of others and finding them small or inconsequential, I should compare them with and hold them up against God’s holiness. That was a mind changer :)
Search me oh God. Please help me to look at my own issues and seek you first above all else. Please help me not to focus on what other people are doing wrong, but give myself to you so that you can cleanse me.
So happy for you Sarah D!!
Good afternoon ladies…hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!
Well, I have a praise. I got offered a pre-K teaching position with the Christian school I interviewed with!!! It would be less pay than I am making now, but it would provide me with teaching experience and also to observe elementary classrooms during the kids’ nap times, which would go towards my practicum blursI haven’t officially accepted yet, but I think I will! There is an elementary instructional assistant position I have been waiting to hear back on from another school, but I am thinking of going with the pre-K position. Thank you SO much for your prayers!! Even though these past almost two years were so hard, I can see how the Lord used it to grow me and learn more about him. Praying I would follow his lead and he would prepare me for what is next.
KELLY (NEO) Well said!
Sin is sin. Oh I pray I can humble myself before God. I have a tendency to think my way is right. I know that is bad. I’m older. I was taught certain things, like get your feet off the furniture..lol My husbands kids are in their 30’s and they were not taught these things. I’m I being ridiculous? But it drives me crazy. Oh God, I need help..
Whoa, out of the days to come back… God nudged me at just the right time. I needed to read this today. How often do I stay lukewarm instead of getting passionately on fire for God? How often do I complain in my spirit from impatience in this season, when God has blessed me greatly? And how often do I forget the Blesser in the midst of my blessings? Lord, please forgive of my ignorance, pride, scarcity mentality and ungrateful heart. Please take these things, along with my worries, fears and insecurity, and may I trade them for your peace and joy. May I walk with You today knowing You are with me and for me, and that everything will be okay no matter what it looks like right now. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Thank you CEE GEE for the Message version. So good ❤️ truly convicting.
Praying for your husband THERESA as he gets his passport ready and prepares for his work trip.
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Lord reveal to me those hidden areas of pride. Strip away false humility and show me how to be truly humble in my life!
I have let my pride get in the way wayyy more than I’d like to admit! I have often felt frustrated because I was following the path of God but was I really? Probably not to the best of my ability! @SARAH D. Praying for your job situation!
I’m very guilty of having the “well at least I …” thought process, and life usually humbles me. Parenting is a big wake up call when it comes to judging others, but I know I’ve lived a life of constantly comparing myself to/judging others and I think it has been in a desperate need to “fit in”. But this doesn’t help me “fit in” to the Kingdom. Now that I’m in my 30s those feelings are beginning to subside and I’m more comfortable in who I am each day, realizing how trivial those feelings and moments were, but learning about God’s desire to know each other has me waking up. It’s a message I’ve been hearing in church through the theme of fearing God, and throughout Amos and the Kingdom lesson.
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This is such a great reminder to stay humble and not to let pride creep into our lives. We constantly have to work toward that!
@Theresa- Prayers for those needs, so cool his “job!”
@Victoria E- I was so excited to see your name the last couple of nights! I would have missed it if I didn’t go back!! Hope “our” little guy is doing good and growing into a fun little boy!
@Taylor—Missing you!
GM! There is so much to discuss when it comes to pride, boy have I done “the better than them” comparisons many times over! Also, I use pride a lot in my marriage, I tend to think I don’t do anything wrong…and don’t like to say the simple words “I’m sorry.” I am a work in progress, but I sure have come a long way! But that’s the thing, we must be in the word, AND the greatest thing of the new testament (after the cross of course!) is we have the Spirit in us!! We can move in all ways through the Holy Spirit. He guides, instructs, whispers to us!
But the passages that spoke to me today was the lukewarm person. There are plenty of lukewarm Christians, or as we call them the Sunday Christians. Do we read our bibles during the week? Do we minister to those in need? Do we have a passion to help those in need? Do we share our testimony at every opportunity? Do we extend a hand to those that need it? Are we the hands and feet of Jesus?! God had rather us not be a Christian at all than be a Christian that is a silent one. (that is wow!) Don’t be silent….share. It’s not going to be comfortable at all in the beginning. But God…let him use you and you will be HOT for Jesus and the fire that grows in you. Keep the embers Hot, don’t allow it to go out!!
I’ve had so many times in my life where I thought I had everything figured out, only to realize that was my pride and there was so much I didn’t know. I’m praying this morning that God would open my eyes to the blind spots in my life where I’ve let my pride avert my eyes from my sin.
SARAH D- praying for you as you sort out your job situation. I know you set the June deadline to leave your current position.
KATIE L- continuing to pray for your family. Believing that God has the right attorney waiting to represent you.
And finally, if I could ask for prayers for my husband. He is a professional coffee roaster and last week had an opportunity dropped in his lap to work with some missionaries in Zimbabwe to help a local couple install a coffee roaster and learn how to use it. He’s leaving in three weeks but there are a ton of details that all need to come together. We’re believing that God is in this opportunity but we need him to help everything fall into place. If you could please specifically pray that his passport renewal would go through without an issue. His expired last year and we need to do an emergency renewal since he leaves so soon. And also pray for his safety, that God would use him while he’s there, and that God would also touch his heart through this experience.
Have a wonderful Tuesday, ladies!
You have mistaken your comfort for His blessing when He just wants your heart. Whoa. That thought hit me like a ton of bricks. How quick am I to say He is blessing me but I’m too busy to seek Him first?
“It’s not that bad.” “At least I don’t do what she does.” But sin is sin. And God hates it.”… How many times have I thought this in my heart? I am thankful for the reminder that God hates all sin, and even though it is just a thought in my heart – it is still sin. It’s easy to look at others and see what they are doing wrong (or what we think is wrong), it somehow makes us feel a little better – but the very act is prideful. My prayer for today is that I look at no one else but myself. That God would search me and know my heart (Psalm 139:23-24) and that I will recognize my sin immediately and confess it. I am not better than anyone else. I’m just a sinner saved by grace.
You have mistaken your comforts for His blessing when He just wants your heart.
May I love the Giver more than the gifts and be humbled by your presence and not my circumstances.
VICTORIA E – ❤ So glad you are back for a while along with many of our regulars and so many new folks. What a blessing this group is!
SEARCHING – ❤
I don’t often read The Message version, but went there today. Wow!!!
The Message says:
Amos 3–6 Woe to you who are rushing headlong to disaster!
Catastrophe is just around the corner!
Woe to those who live in luxury
and expect everyone else to serve them!
Woe to those who live only for today,
indifferent to the fate of others!
Woe to the playboys, the playgirls,
who think life is a party held just for them!
Woe to those addicted to feeling good—life without pain! those obsessed with looking good — life without wrinkles!
They could not care less about their country going to ruin.
One of the saddest passages in the Bible ends with this great hope:
Revelation 21 “To the one who conquers I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.
JESSICA MATHISAN – Thank you for sharing your heart through this encouraging devotional!
Thanks Kelly! That landed with me.
Lord, forgive my areas of pride. I’m nothing without You. In Jesus’ name, Amen
Amen, KELLY (NEO).
I advise you to buy gold refined in the fire.
I think it is important to note that God did not have first place in their hearts, They let the blessings become more important than the Blesser. So easy to do.
Then the blessings are considered something we deserved instead of something to share.
Ever good gift comes from above, thank you Lord