Psalm 139 Death of Pride

DiscoveriesPsalm 139Much less how than through, endurance is to keep walking. As is faith, trust. Circumstances being the ground we are walking on, over them and under your feet each step of the way.... and lead me in the way everlasting. How great the folly of pride in ourselves when we have been exposed to Him even to ... when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Gloriously and yet shameful if we must hide from Him who knows ourselves to depths farther than we will ever reach. To come to realize it is true freedom of effort to pretend anymore, to play the hypocrite of personality, to ape conduct behind a mask, to forge a good impression with ill motive. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? True folly it is to throw a blanket on the sun. To hide in The Light, even thou understandest my thought afar off. It is a charade to be puffed up with knowledge, to wield it like a club, to feign forgiveness and hold on to superiority. To think beyond and before we have yet arrived in the imagination of our hearts, our minds allowed to out run our steps.It is pride that goes before, that stumbling stone of dishonesty, a fall. Is it not more true that we need not be honest before Him as a requirement to attain, to live up to, an acquirement, as it is an outstripping of everything that is false? Pride is a lie that cannot stand in the Light. What great liberty there is, what freedom to not have to pretend any longer! O that our eyes were opened to see it, our ears to hear it, our innermost soul to grasp it! Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Psa 139:5,6 How quick and ready to forgive, to admit our many shortcomings ... For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether. Where is the defending and offending of ourselves? Where is the certainty lacking reality? Does the Lord not laugh at our ridiculousness, this puffing out our chest, this strutting like roosters, these clay swords and square wheel chariots.Look to the Lord Himself, incarnate light before Who even the demons recognized ... Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. Always fleeing, always seeking somewhere to hide. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. Think of it. Jesus who is The perfection of truth, the embodiment of pure holiness being subject to corruption, allowing evil men of which we all are born out of ("you... being evil") to level there very best efforts at Him, from the spittle of unclean lips to the hatred of their very souls, despising the Light that layed them bare before His eyes. He must be not only stopped, but killed!But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us. Oh! On the contrary, He most certainly will.The audacity of fakery. The sheer stupidity of pulling ones self up by the boot straps, one last tug from the grave? It can be difficult whether to weep profoundly at the folly of the unregenerate or to laugh in the face of pride as the lie that it is. Perhaps we ought not to smile too broadly, not a one of us having lived in the kingdom of this world in all it's allure, having escaped by being brought out and into His marvelous light.Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. From Adam and Eve and King Saul to Pilate and Judas, you can run ... From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another? Jam 4:1-12Joh 4:23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.Shall indeed! For there is no other way. We ought to be ever so thankful for this great gift of exposure, what beauty there is in purity of honesty, faults and warts and all before Him Who we have to do.For in him we live, and move, and have our being Act 17:28 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Genesis 22:1 - 34 Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. edit: THE Father and THE Son - endured... together ...Never thought of that! Still can remember when the reality of this whole foreshadowing broke in on my conscience so many years back. "Knew" the "story" and the types and shadows in a surface level kind of way. But there was a day that I was reading those passages when the clarity really broke through ... it just leveled me into a pool of tears, so profound it was. The imagination soaring with what must have been in Abraham's thoughts as he reared back the knife, his own son! And to stop at that moment and ponder Gods own Son! More so the incredible intervention at the last possible moment... Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. Of the many things that spring up in thought that could be extrapolated out ... The profundity being that it was as if the Lord was saying "This far only will you be allowed to go, no man will be able to atone for his own sins... (The whole reasoning behind " Heb 10:11 And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: Heb 10:12 But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;) I will provide my Own sacrifice... And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns:Surely it was a testing of Abraham's faith in the main, but the types and shadows of what was to come in Jesus' life and sacrafice... What it cost God, when that broke in.. it left me utterly devastated, in repentance and tears in grasping at such a great love towards us, the great mercy and yet judgment taken upon Himself.. So much so that ... Mar 15:34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And we can get bogged down in mere trifles and contentions.. Maybe this is a better treatment of the issue of pride. How dare we?

If you are able to see glimpses of angelic rebellion in... Ezek. 28:17 (KJVS) Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness:...pr[font=Verdana]I[/font]de is the 'original sin'. Perhaps it is a linguistic providence that has given us a word with "I" at its heart?

a short illustration on pride...A newly commissioned Navy captain took great pride in his first assignment to be in command of a battleship. One stormy night the captain saw a light moving steadily in their direction. He ordered the signalman to send the following message: "Change your course ten degrees to the south." The reply came back: "Change your course ten degrees to the north."The captain was determined not to give way to another vessel, and so he sent a counter message. "Alter your direction ten degrees. I am the captain." The answer flashed back promptly: "Alter your direction. I am the lighthouse."There are times when all of us have to identify with the captain; times when we allow self-will to set us off on a collision course."I have my rights," we say, determined to have our own way. But God, whose Word is like a lighthouse with a penetrating and unchangeable beacon, reveals a rocky shore ahead and finally we do as the captain surely did. We obey.Our prayer for ourselves, and for the church should be as Jesus prayed, "Not my will, but Thine be done."