Let My Praises Be Heard!
YOU CAN HAVE LOSS WITHOUT BITTERNESS, AND GAIN WITHOUT PRIDE!
There can be (as in her ‘case’) the coexistence of grief and gratitude. It is ‘natural’ (human) to experience grief, but it is not human (or godly) to succumb to bitterness and vindictiveness and resentment and carnal anger. The former emotion can lead you closer to God, while the latter emotion will certainly drive you away from God!
We must avoid bitterness (the opposite of gratitude) at all costs, for bitterness (according to Hebrews 12) not only ‘defiles’ the spirit of the one who is bitter, but bitterness will defile everyone who surrounds the person who is bitter!
On the other end of the scale (opposite to despair) is the spirit of pride (self-sufficiency). This is an equally harmful attitude. If bitterness defiles the human spirit, so it is also true to say that pride equally defiles the human spirit. Both are equally harmful (and sinful)! If grief can lead to bitterness, so success can lead to pride!
If one person is bitter against God because of life’s losses, another person – a successful person may be proud because of his achievements. The one who is self-sufficient (that is, the one who believes that his successes are due to his own inherent abilities), this person’s successes can result in driving him further away from God.
The successful person (in terms of money, fame, power) can become a man who feels he does not need God in his life – that he does not need to pray for guidance, that he does not need to read the Bible for nurture, that he does not need the insights which the preached word can give, that he does not need to reach out to the poor whom (he thinks) have only themselves to blame for their plight (poverty).
The self-reliant (highly gifted) man may not sense his need for divine enablement or for divine guidance. He is ‘on his own’ and he is proud to be a ‘self-made man’. God resists the ‘proud man’, but the proud man does not know about this divine indictment! The proud man is on very ‘shaky ground’! God’s judgment of this self-sufficient ‘fool’ is impending, but he is oblivious (spiritually blind) to his eventual and terrible fate!
Table of contents: Let my praises be heard!
Christian Devotionals 