Pride is a terrible thing. We all are prone to it to some extent. When we look back at the testings and trials of Israel in the Wilderness it is easy for us to sit back and claim that we would never be that impatient or selfish or discontent or rebellious. Those folks were really messed up!
How is that for pride? Do we really, truly think that we are any better than they?
Paul knew that and if he didn’t the Holy Spirit certainly did. He knew that people looked back with pride and arrogance at the travels through the Wilderness and how Israel failed over and over and over again.
So Paul writes ‘let he that stands pay attention so that he doesn’t fall.’ The Corinthian believers were just as prone to failure as Israel was. We are just as prone today. I look at Israel now, and this stage of life, and see more and more and more of me. I see me discontent and fleshly thoughts and untrusting. I see me questioning what God is doing. I think I am beyond looking back and wanting my old life before Christ, but even there I can find myself wondering why the world has so much and I have realtively little.
I need to be careful that I don’t get too haughty and proud. When I do I will stumble and fall. It is not even a matter of God punishing me. When I get proud and haughty I start to depend on me and not God and when I depend on me I will always stumble.
It way too easy to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. When we do we are asking for trouble.
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