Vital signs- Saturday, April 2nd, 2022

The Barrier of Pride

Life is a struggle, but what most people don't realize is that our struggle, like Jacob's in Genesis 32:22-32, is really with God! We want to be God, and there's no way we're going to win that struggle, but we try anyway. A.W. Tozer said, "The reason why many are still troubled, still seeking, still making little forward progress is because they haven't yet come to the end of themselves. We're still trying to give orders, and interfering with God's work within us." We aren't God, and we never will be. We're humans, and the times when we try to be God are the times we end up most like Satan, who tried to be equal with God, too. We accept our humanity intellectually, but not emotionally. We give mental assent to the idea, but when faced with our own limitations, we react with irritation, anger, and resentment. We want to be taller (or shorter), smarter, stronger, more talented, beautiful, and wealthy. We want to have it all and do it all, and become upset when it doesn't happen. Then, when we notice God gave others characteristics we don't have, we respond with envy, jealousy, and self-pity. C. S. Lewis observed, "The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become - because he made us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own."

“Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,”

‭‭II Corinthians‬ ‭3:5‬ ‭NKJV‬‬