• “No matter! The King who placed us “there” will come and dwell there with us; the hedges are right, or He would soon do away with them.” – Frances Ridley Havergal

An Antidote for Pride By Elisabeth Elliot

The basis of all sin of whatever kind is pride. This was what inspired the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and it is always with us. One very common form it takes is the pride of privilege. When a man is given a special position, he forgets that it was given. He becomes proud, as though “his own arm” had gotten him the victory.

God knows well the heart and made provision for this sin of pride when He instructed the Israelites about appointing a king. He was to make a copy of the law. This would be the antidote, necessary for him and likewise for all of us (for “law” read “Word”). “He shall keep it by him and read from it all his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God and keep all the words of this law and observe these statutes.

In this way he shall not become prouder than his fellow countrymen nor shall he turn from these commandments to right or left” (Dt 17:19, 20 NEB). The attempt itself to keep the commandments, one by one and day after day, will be sufficient to humble us, for the “straightedge of the law” (Rom 3:20 JBP) will only show us, as Paul found, how crooked we are. We will find, in fact, that we cannot keep it. “The whole matter is on a different plane–believing instead of achieving” (Rom 3:27 JBP). Pride won’t find much foothold on that plane.

 

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  • “Peace does not dwell in outward things, but in the heart prepared to wait trustfully and quietly on Him who has all things safely in His hands.” – Elisabeth Elliot

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Verse of the Day

[Jesus a Third Time Predicts His Death and Resurrection] Now Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples aside on the road and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify. And the third day He will rise again.” — Matthew 20: 17-19 (NKJV)

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