Be the killer--not the kill-ee

Be killing sin or it will be killing you.

Personally, I tend to be a lover--not a killer.
However, there is one thing that has given me enough trouble in this life to stir up more than a little righteous indignation, and that's pride.
I recognize it in a few specific people in my life and it irritates me like nothing else.
They are the ultimate critics, will let few in on their real problems and sin, and act as though they are the authority on every subject-- even when they are biologically or experiencially inadequate to have any say in the matter.

Now this blog would sound like a glorified rant against prideful people, and it IS, except for my real point is this:

Me. It's me. I do these things and don't even recognize I'm doing them and really, I don't find the behaviors nearly as irritating in myself as I do in others. Really though maybe that's WHY I find these behaviors so irritating in others, because they mirror the worst of myself.

There was a point in my life not so very long ago that I was consistently recognizing pride and the many shapes it was taking in my life and actively fighting it. I fear that more recently, however, I have become complacent and befriended this worst of all enemies of my God given soul.

Pride is so sneaky.
It makes me feel important and worthy.
It makes me feel secure--in my ability.
It lies.

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, a people for his own possession,
that you may proclaim the excellencies of him
who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light."
1 Peter 2:9

Oh,That I may proclaim HIS excellencies and not my own.

Perhaps Proverbs says it best?

"Let another praise you, and not your own mouth;
a stranger, and not your own lips."
Proverbs 27:1

LORD give me a hospitable heart for You--one that recognizes pride and hates the self-worship it causes.

"Too often my cares and concerns are nothing more than a sign of my personal
luxury. I don’t have to worry about whether I will survive another day, so I
miss out on the blessing each day affords amidst my self-absorbed complaining
and absurd expectations. I don’t simply want life, I want flawless life,
problem-free life, a beautiful life. When life doesn’t measure up to my
superficial standards, I am ungrateful for it. "

--SheWorships Blog

Today I got so upset about not getting the grade I want in a really trivial class. The truth is it really doesn't matter in the scheme of things and i'm not sure it would glorify God more if I got an A in this particular class. Perhaps, in this instance, the humility I am gaining from my substantially less than perfect grades in nursing school is more important to God than a 4.0.

My only plea today? That my personal agenda--the one I want for my own glory and not God's would be steadily replaced by a concern for the things that bring God glory...or perhaps the things that don't, that should, that can--that I would become steadily less aware of myself and more aware of the God who made me and calls me by name.

"Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

Phillippians 2:4-8