“Do you get it, Mister Pride? I’m your enemy!”
Decree of the Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
Jeremiah 50:31a (MSG)
When I am given the opportunity to preach or teach, I always try to boil my message down into one sentence or statement. I ask myself “What’s the one thing I’m trying to say?” and try to state it clearly. Then, as I fill in the outline of my message, I continue to ask myself if my outline, my illustrations, and my content bring clarity to my one theme or distract from it.
Maybe that’s why I find myself looking for this main point when I read chapters like the one today. It’s a long, rambling prophetic message and it’s easy to get lost in the sheer length and redundancy of it. So, my eyes and my heart start looking for the real message beneath the text. What’s the main point God’s wants me to take away from this?
Today, I found it in the verse above. God’s beef with Babylon is really pride (read the first five chapters of Daniel for more detail). God and pride are enemies. Pride led to Lucifer’s fall. Pride led to Adam and Eve’s disobedience. Pride, the inordinate opinion of my own dignity, importance, and merit, has led to countless stupid choices and painful experiences.
Today, I’m asking God to teach me humility in greater measure.
Related articles
- The Weeping Prophet (14christalone.wordpress.com)
- Beware of Lamech’s Pride (cyoung27909.wordpress.com)
- Why Not Pray?. (greatriversofhope.wordpress.com)
- Repentance from Pride (fivepeasinapod.wordpress.com)
4-5″In those days, at that time”—God’s Decree—
“the people of Israel will come,
And the people of Judah with them.
Walking and weeping, they’ll seek me, their God.
I am reminded how a disaster like Japan is experiencing drives people to God. Why does it take such calamity and destruction for people to stop relying on themselves? The chapter today reminds me that we need to seek God both during the good times and the bad.