DAY 04 - CONTROL AND PRIDE
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FOOD CALENDAR:
Juices and water all day
DEVO:
How much are you still trying to control life? What does that say about your heart? Is your heart really in a surrendered posture before the Lord? Today you can make some decisions to turn your heart to the Lord, allowing His grace to transform it.
1 Peter 5:5 (NKJV) Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to [your] elders. Yes, all of [you] be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for "God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble."
Do you try to control everything in your life? Control is a symptom of pride. Pride is the elevation of one's own essence (intellect, creativity, and power) to control something. Pride is dependency on oneself, rather than on God.
We express pride by things such as:
Lust for power (politics, business, class warfare, gender warfare, church leadership, relationships)
Independence and rebellion again leaders and government
Selfish ambition
Competition and comparisons
Excessive jealousy
Anger
Most people trivialize pride in themselves. It is always someone else who has the issues of pride. Scripture speaks to the gravity of pride's fallout, "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18)
The primary reason pride is so destructive is because it places dependencies on one's own abilities, resourcefulness, and protection. This is blatantly independent from God's abilities, resources, and protection. You can't neglect issues of pride and think you will live in great blessings.
The good news is, while you cannot transform your own heart, God wants to give you a heart-overhaul, cleansing you from pride. While you soak in worship, prayer, and Bible reading be sure to surrender your heart again to God. Remember—when you see things about your heart you don’t like—YOU can’t change it, only God can. So, spend time letting God overwhelm your heart with His amazing grace! Remember this is a process, not an event.
Take the Pride Assessment to have an honest look at where you are. But don't be discouraged, great grace is being accessed in these days of fasting. God isn’t looking for perfection or performance on your part; He is looking for trust and dependence on Him. Only God can change your heart!
PRAYER:
Lord God, I surrender my independent attitude to You. I ask You for strength to turn from my own self-sufficiency to complete and absolute dependence on You. Where I have pride and urges to control, I ask You to wash through me with Your grace, so that I emerge transformed and in the heart-image of Christ. I receive Your works in the very core of my personality. I will wait on You, abiding in Your presence, until my heart looks like Your heart. I receive!
PRAYER PLAN:
Church Faith Community to Have Humility - That EVERYONE at my local church faith community would humble themselves before God, receiving His grace.
SUGGESTED READING: Galatians 4 (NIV)
What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. 2 The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3 So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. 4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. 6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? 10 You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! 11 I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.
12 I plead with you, brothers and sisters, become like me, for I became like you. You did me no wrong. 13 As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you, 14 and even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. 15 Where, then, is your blessing of me now? I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. 16 Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?
17 Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good. What they want is to alienate you from us, so that you may have zeal for them. 18 It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always, not just when I am with you. 19 My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, 20 how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I am perplexed about you!
21 Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. 23 His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.
24 These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written:
“Be glad, barren woman, you who never bore a child; shout for joy and cry aloud, you who were never in labor; because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband.”
28 Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. 30 But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” 31 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.
DECLARATION:
I humble myself before God. God is multiplying grace into my life (1 Peter 5:5-6). I release all self-sufficiency and trust in the sufficiency of Christ. I now have all sufficiency in all things and abound to every good work (2 Corinthians 9:8). I live in every favor and earthly blessing coming to me in abundance (2 Corinthians 9:8 AMP). Today God is lifting me up, promoting me in the anointing, and making breakthroughs where it was previously impossible.
WORKSHOP SATURATION:
Workshop saturation is taking spiritual topics and listening to them until they change the way you think, believe, and live. During the Awakening fast, we encourage you to binge-listen or binge-watch our Workshops the way you would binge-watch a show on Netflix. See Workshop Saturation for more information and instructions for accessing the Workshops.
COMMENTS:
Throughout your 21 days, please leave comments of how these Daily Devos have encouraged, inspired, and comforted your heart and faith. Read other people's comments and respond. Let's have a conversation!
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