1-24-2016

God's Love vs My Pride

I could list several situations where my pride came into play and things didn't end up well. In fact, i'd say that most times my pride comes into the equation it doesn't end exactly great. God is always in my heart and the Holy Spirit guides my conscious into morality. It's up to me to either listen to that prompting or not.
Here is the thing though, I have a genuine love for my God. I have dove in head first and there is no back peddling. In fact, on my back I have a tattoo that says "Slave To Christ" in Greek. I have it stretched across my back loud and proud to announce to the world that I am a willing bondservent of Jesus the Christ. So in my mind, I am at His will. So when God says to do something that is so plain as day, I can't really refuse and choose not to listen, that isn't a very good bondservant. 
I have a fear of what happens next, in the next phase of our lives, if that is eternity and I can't comprehend eternity...or forever, I think that I should treat it with a little more reverence. That is a scary thing to not know what the next step is. Some may say that it's no big deal, but I disagree. I think that it's a very big deal. What if you think that after you die that nothing happens and you get there and guess what, your nonchalant attitude about eternity backfires and you are stuck in a horrible place for...eternity. Me on the other hand, if I spend the rest of my life living a lifestyle that is following the doctrines of Christ and I die and nothing happens, then I have not wasted my life. At the very least I was kind to people, I loved the people around me and I was a very giving person. Admittedly, my first 28 years I was not a very good person, however I am not going to spend the rest of my time here in this bag of flash being a horrible person. I will spend the rest of my time here trying to convince people that life is worth more that our pride.
This is not one of those situations where there is voices in a man's head that he heeds blindly. No, no voices, but there is a certain feeling that I get. You get it too, when you know you are about to do something wrong, your conscious convicts you, you just know that you shouldn't do that. Your "moral compass" comes into play. You may call it whatever, I call it Holy Spirit. That which guides me. 
So last night when God put someone on my heart to make amends with as I was returning from the bathroom, it was odd that he wuold suddenly come to mind. Especially in a positive light, when I really disdained the man 30 seconds ago. Now it's on my heart to go and shake his hand and let him know that I am no longer allowed to dislike him. So imagine my surprise when he emerges from his house directly in front of me as soon as the thought completes...
So I did what any moral person would do, I listened and just told him that God is convicting me of harboring hatred, hatred that is not mine to harbor anymore. I did my best to explain. Hopefully he doesn;t think I am a nut job, but it really doesn't matter now does it? Bottom line is this, I did my job as a believer. I let of that hatred and bad seeds and started lovin him as best as I know how. 

Love vs Pride, listen to love

Jeff