The Holy Spirit of God is speaking to my heart urgently to share with you this message in His Holy Word regarding pride.  It started with a beautiful cherub angel with intelligence that God ordained in the garden of Eden.  Ezekiel 28:13-16  You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you:  ruby, topaz, and emerald, chrysolite, onyx and jasper, sapphire, turquoise and beryl.  Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared.  You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you.  You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.  You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness found you.  Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned.  So, I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, O guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones.  God gives angels and people free will to choose to obey Him.  However, there are consequences when we disobey our Father in heaven.  Pride is an easy trap for us to fall into so this is why we must be on alert of the devil’s schemes.  Satan’s ways are not always so obvious, so we must keep our heart in check with God daily and through out the day.  Ecclesiastes 7:8  The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.

We live in a world where pride is growing in many different ways.  We get impatient and want things done right now and on our own terms.  But we must remember that it is about God and not ourselves.  Also, our talents, skills, knowledge, and physical appearance are used in comparison with others.  We either look down on others thinking we are better than they are, or we look down on ourselves for not measuring up somehow.  We must put the truth of ourselves in perspective and give God the glory for any and all talents, skills, and knowledge that we have.  We are all created equal in the image of God and He gives different levels of intelligence and skills, however, it is equal in value to Him.  No one is greater than another human being.  We didn’t create ourselves and therefore we cannot give ourselves credit for our amazing abilities on this earth.  Also, we cannot look down on others who have a different level of knowledge or skill than we have.  This is all for the glory of God and all people were created for Him to worship Him.  Sadly there are those who reject God and His Son.  Pray to God in the name of Jesus to keep your heart humble and give Him all the glory regarding your gifts, talents, knowledge, and don’t compare one to another.  We need to love and forgive because of Jesus who died and rose again so those who accept Him in their heart will be forgiven by God.

God spoke through the prophets of old, telling them of the new covenant He would make

Fortelling of Jesus, who would come as His Living Word, a perfect Lamb, His life no one would take

Because He would willingly give it, as it is the will of His Father who sent Him here on this earth

To speak of God’s Word and uphold the law of Moses, through His death and resurrection, for us a new birth

As it says in John 3:16 that Jesus spoke of to tell all who would listen, that if they believe in Him, God’s Son

They would not perish but have eternal life with our Father, grafted in our new family of believers as a body of one

Once He gave up His Spirit, it was complete, buried in the tomb, those who disbelieved thought He was dead

But, God in His infinite power raised Jesus up on the 3rd day, alive in His glory, with many witnesses testifying instead

There were witnesses to Jesus ascending into the clouds to be at the right hand of God, now a Helper he has sent

Which is the Holy Spirit of God, to those who believe in Jesus would receive Him in hearts to see their own sin and repent

2 Corinthians 4:4   The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.  2 Peter 3:3  First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.  Ephesians 6:12  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  Proverbs 19:28-29  A corrupt witness mocks at justice, and the mouth of the wicked gulps down evil.  Penalties are prepared for mockers, and beatings for the backs of fools.

These are the last days and no one except our Father in heaven knows when the last day of this world is, so we must put on the armor of God and continue to tell others the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Ephesians 6:13-18  Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may able stand your ground, and after you have done everything to stand.  Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.  In additon to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Take the helmet of salvation and the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.  And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.  With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

My life before I met Jesus was very much like a crazy and dangerous roller coaster ride.  Some people like roller coaster rides, in fact a lot of people do.  Not me, I guess I am just a scaredy cat.  But, amazingly enough in my life before Jesus shined his light on me, I went down dangerous and scary roads.  In fact, trying to find peace and love, I ended up in dangerous places.  As a kid, I did go to a true believing, God fearing church and learned about Jesus, but my heart wasn’t ready to accept Him in it and my life.  I had head knowledge but not heart knowledge and as time went on, I went away from the church.  Though my grandma, mom, and other people would tell me how I need Jesus and he is the answer to everything, I still didn’t accept this as truth.  Honestly I rejected it altogether.  I even told them how it didn’t make sense and refused to listen to anything regarding God or the Bible.  I was very selfish and only wanted to live for myself, but truly it was only in God’s timing would He show Himself to me.  Due to things that happened to me along the way growing up and early adulthood, I had a hard time accepting that God did love me because He let things happen to me.  My heart was cold toward Him.  Like the Israelites who went away from God and suffered oppression, I too was left to evil because instead of turning to God for help, I went away from Him into evil.  Anything that is done without God is evil because He is not a part of it.  Some people would say that’s not true, but it is the truth.  What I would try to do for good would end up being evil because my mind was futile and I was self righteous.  So, I did end up doing bad things just like all people have done and still do at times.  The difference between Christians and those who reject God’s Son is the fact that when you have the Holy Spirit of God, He convicts you of your own sin and keeps your heart aligned with God’s.  It is only by the grace of God that anyone can have any good because He is the only One who is perfect and never evil. 

In 2008 when I was in a store to buy presents for my son’s birthday, a messenger of God placed something in my hand, closed it and said these words:”Here this is for you.”  Then he walked away and I didn’t see him anymore.  When I opened my hand to see what he placed in it, I was humbled before God because what he had given me was a cross with words written that said I Jesus Lord.  I knew immediately what God was telling me because His Spirit opened the eyes of my heart to see Jesus and I said yes to Jesus and now the Spirit of God lives within my heart and my life hasn’t been the same ever since that special day in March of 2008.  Praise the Lord because God brought me to Jesus.  He knew my heart was ripe to receive Him.

God is the one who is leading me in my walk with Him.  Everyday there is a struggle but the Lord is holding my hand and sometimes he carries me when I can’t walk.  Though I don’t see Him, I know He is there and can sense His presence because God is everywhere I am.  He has given me His Holy Spirit that dwells in my heart and my Heavenly Father is all around me.  The Lord guides my heart and directs my steps into the path I need to go.  Therefore we must prayerfully consider these verses in His Holy Word in 2 Corinthians 5:5 and 7   Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, gauranteeing what is to come.  We live by faith, not by sight.

Thank You God, thank You Jesus for all that you have done

For giving me eternal life through the blood of Your only Son

What more can I say? For it’s written in my heart

Your Spirit You have given me never to depart

My heart is brand new and the old me has passed away

Since being baptized with Your fire, I desire to shine Your light for all to see You each day

Isaiah 11 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.  The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him-the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord- and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.  He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice give decisions for the poor of the earth.  He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.  Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.  The wolf will live with the lamb, the leapord will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.  The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.  The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest.  They will neither harm nor destroy on my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.  In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious.  In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea. 

He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four corners of the earth.  Ephraim’s jealousy will vanish, and Judah’s enemies will be cut off; Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah, nor Judah hostile toward Ephraim.  They will swoop down on the slopes of Philistia to the west; together they will plunder the people to the east.  They will lay hands on Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites will be subject to them.  The Lord will dry up the gulf of the Egyptian sea; with scorching wind he will sweep his hand over the Euphrates River.  He will break it up into seven streams so that men can cross over in sandals.  There will be a highway for the remnant of his people that is left from Assyria, as there was for Israel when they came from Egypt.

Matthew 3:16-17   As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water.  At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lightning on him.  And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

Micah 5:2  “But you Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.  Matthew 2:1-2   After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem, and asked, “Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews?  We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”

Isaiah 7:14  Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.  Matthew 1:22-23  All this took place to fulfill what the Lord has said through the prophet: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel-which means, “God is with us.”

Genesis 12:3  I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.  Matthew 1:1  A record if the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:

Genesis 17:19  Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac.  I will establish a covenant with him that is an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.  Luke 3:34  the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor,

Genesis 49:10  The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.  Hebrews 7:14-16   For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, and in regard to that tribe Moses said nothing about priests.  And what we have said is even more clear if another priest like Melchizedek appears, one who has become a priest not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life.

Jeremiah 31:15  This is what the Lord says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more.”  Matthew 2:16-18  When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.  Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:  “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.  Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails.  But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophecy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.  When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.  Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.  And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love.

This morning satan put terrible thoughts in my mind but quickly God took them away with Biblical scripture and led me to read about inner beauty.  All of a sudden out of no where these terrible thoughts came into my mind regarding my physical beauty.  The thoughts were that I don’t measure up to physical beauty because I am somewhat overweight.  I started to cry about this because I have been trying to lose weight but for health reasons and it is a struggle for me.  I used to be able to stick with a very strick diet program and now I just can’t do it.  However, I do eat lowfat and healthy but it is hard to get off the 15 pounds that I need to lose.  My human nature does want to be beautiful and slim for my physical appearance for my husband.  He does tell me that I am beautiful but it hard for me to accept what he says.  The Holy Spirit is convicting my heart not to focus on physical beauty and immediately in the middle of my crying these Biblical verses came to my mind in 1 Peter 3: 3-6   Your beauty should not come from outward odornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes.  Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.  For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful.  They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master.  You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.