Spiritual Maturity and Pride
Hi Friends,
We are living at a critical time in history. Things are changing everyday, and at such a pace, that a year from now, life might be very different. Political and social distress, economic uncertainty, moral decline, challenges to freedom, deceitfulness and propaganda are everywhere. We may ask ourselves, “How is it possible to overcome the lies and ideologies that undermine our nation?” Do we need to fight or take flight? Where can we find peace and safety? Many questions arise from change. Much fear is promoted and accepted. What is a person to do?
The Lord has given me three visions that I am sharing with you today. I hope you will hear the Lord’s voice calling you to himself, and giving you direction.
The Visions
Milk
The first vision I received was of a gallon of milk. The plastic jug was slender and taller than a generic milk container, and was filled to the top. There are several passages of scripture that refer to milk:
“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Incline your ear and come to Me; listen, so that your soul may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant—My loving devotion promised to David.” Isaiah 55:1-3
Milk, in this passage, represents God’s words of truth that he would like to share with all. It is what satisfies the soul. It is the words and the powerful promises of God that give life.
In this next passage, milk represents the basic teachings of Christ. It represents foundational spiritual truths, that if we truly accept them, and live by them, they will cause us to mature in the faith.
“Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? 1 Corinthians 3:1-3
Again, as in the former passage, milk represents the basic teachings of God. But the fact that one needs milk and has not moved onto more profound teachings in Christ, shows that one is still worldly and has not brought the flesh under the control of the Spirit.
“We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” Hebrews 5:11-14
This next scripture again shows that God’s desire for us is to mature in our spirits. We are to make no room for the things that cause us to look more like the devil, than like Christ:
“Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” 1 Peter 2:2
The vision of the milk is a warning to the Church, to not be conformed to the ways of the world nor embrace its values. In each of these passages of scripture, we are told to leave the sinful ways of the flesh behind and to grow in our faith. This growth occurs out of a decision to follow the Lord and to embrace the Lord’s commands and his instruction. To give up our worldly ways takes a desire to commit to God, and to put him first.
If we give ourselves to the reading and studying of God’s word, we open up an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to speak to us, or to bring conviction to our hearts regarding sin. When we recognize our behavior or our speech as sin, the Holy Spirit will move upon our hearts to repent, and we will ask the Lord to forgive us.
Before we were saved, we may have justified our actions by following the world’s cues. “Everyone else is doing it, so it must be okay.” If we do not grow and mature by reading the word of God and spending time in prayer, then our training in righteousness and our awareness of sin will be stunted. We will remain worldly, and there will be no difference between ourselves and those that are unsaved. Eventually the excitement we had initially about following the Lord, will wane and we will find ourselves just going through the motions. Complacency eventually becomes apathy, and apathy leads to apostasy.
There are some who do nothing about their own sin, and become a terrible example of a Christian. My own son said of a church, “If God is real, he sure isn’t in that church!”
“For, as it is written, ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.’” Romans 2:24
The Lord loves us as we are, but he does not want us to remain as we are. He wants us to grow in love, in faith, in power, in grace, in mercy and in the knowledge of Him and his word. He saved us, healed us, delivered us, and brought us into a right relationship with himself, so that we could be a blessing and a testimony of God’s faithfulness to those around us. We can bless others by being Jesus’ disciple, following the lead of the Holy Spirit, or we can be an immature and worldly Christian who causes the Lord’s name to be blasphemed.
Let’s commit to becoming a true disciple of Jesus, allowing the Holy Spirit to mold and make us into his image. It is Jesus who we should emulate, not the world and its values. We will grow spiritually as we dine on spiritual food.
Let’s not give into the flesh to do as we like. “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Romans 8:13
Hallelujah! The Lord saves!
Steam
In the next vision, I saw steam suddenly escape out of some invisible source. It made a “swoosh” sound reminding me of how steam comes out when a train brakes.
The “swoosh” sound of the steam reminded me of a Christian man who is considered by some to be a prophet. I saw him not long ago, and was rather cautious in my determination as to whether he was truly a prophet or someone that prophesied out of his imagination. Prophecy can be a blessing to the church. But if it is not from God, it can cause great harm to whomever accepts the word. That is why I am particularly wary of accepting personal prophecy. The word of God tells us repeatedly to be aware of false prophets, and false teachers. We are to test the spirits. Before receiving this vision of the steam, I had been praying for the Lord to reveal whether this man was prophesying from God’s directive, or from his imagination.
He walked up and down the aisles, and singled out an individual to whom he would prophesy. As he prophesied, I would hear him blowing air, which sounded just like the sound in the vision, like a steam engine setting its brakes. I have heard several others do the same as they prophesied. So when I saw the vision of steam, and heard this sound, I considered that perhaps the Lord was addressing my question concerning this man.
At the same time, I wanted to be sure that it was steam and not something else that I saw in the vision. If it were steam, it could represent power, because steam powers an engine that is capable of pulling a long chain of cars.
If instead of steam, it was hot air, it might represent pride, or being “puffed up?”
If it was smoke, instead of steam, perhaps it might represent deceitfulness, as someone who “blows smoke.”
And if it was something supernatural, rather than steam, it might represent the glory cloud and the presence of God.
So, I prayed for the Lord to show me what he intended by the vision. I asked him to show me something in the Bible that would help me understand. I opened to page 1455, and I saw this passage: “They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.” Matthew 24:30
Wow! God is good! Out of the several meanings that I had considered: power, pride, deceit or glory, the Lord showed me two of them! The steam represented the power and glory of God. Isn’t he so faithful!
One of my favorite passages of scripture is this: “Call to me and I will answer you, and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” Jeremiah 33:3
So the Lord showed me by the vision and its interpretation that this “prophet,” was indeed moving in the power of God, for the glory of God. It is so important to test the spirits, for many people can be led astray by following leaders who are deceived themselves. The Lord is more than willing to share his thoughts with us, and give us direction, if only we are willing to listen to what he has to say.
The Man’s Shirt
The third vision is about pride. I saw a man’s blue and white pin-striped dress shirt folded in the shape of a rectangle and stuffed like a pillow. There was no doubt what the Lord was saying. A man who is puffed up with pride can be referred to as a “stuffed shirt.”
“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6
Pride and arrogance are personal characteristics that cause the Lord to resist us. Why? Because pride puffs us up and makes us feel important and better than others. There is a spiritual pride which is probably the worst of all. Spiritual pride is self worship. It is the notion that we are just too cool and more spiritual than others. We rob the Lord of the glory due his name, when we want others to know what WE DID for the Lord. God is all powerful. We are nothing, and “Apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
We need to appreciate that fact - that we are nothing and that God is everything. The Lord is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. He is the great I Am. How could we choose to rob him of the honor due his name, by taking the credit for what only he can do? When we are full of pride, we grieve the Holy Spirit and we offend God. Our pride dishonors his name.
And spiritual pride is deceiving. It causes us to believe that we are in perfect harmony with God because “He is using me to do his work - healing, miracles, signs and wonders.” A prideful person may not feel the conviction of sin or the need to repent for personal sin. But we must see that pride causes our relationship with God to be one of contention.
“Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!’” Matthew 7:22
Do you remember Mary Magdalene, from whom seven demons were cast out? She was Martha’s sister, the one who chose to sit at the Lord’s feet and to listen to his teaching. Mary was also the one who poured oil on the Lord’s feet and wiped them with her hair and her tears. She was one of those who remained at the cross to give Jesus her support. Mary Magdalene was one of the women who brought spices to the Lord’s tomb to prepare his body for burial. Her love for the Lord was great because she had been forgiven much.
Do you remember the Lord’s words to Simon the Pharisee, when Mary had just entered his home with her alabaster jar? Wasn’t he prideful and indignant that she, “a sinner,” had the gall to enter his home uninvited, and worship the Lord with her perfumed oil? Jesus knew that the Pharisee was offended at her presence. His thoughts questioned Jesus’ spiritual awareness. (Why didn’t Jesus realize that the woman who was anointing his feet was a known sinner?)
Jesus’ ability to teach with parables and to point out errors, is really remarkable. Below is the passage which includes the parable by which Jesus showed the Pharisee the condition of his heart.
“One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.’ And Jesus answering said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ And he answered, ‘Say it, Teacher.’
“A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he canceled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then those who were at table with him began to say among[a] themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” Luke 7:36-50
We can see that the Pharisee’s spiritual pride blinded him to his need for repentance. His pride and his belief in his own personal “holiness” caused him to have contempt for those who he considered beneath him and especially sinners.
Spiritual pride is antithetical to who the Lord is and what he values. Jesus said, “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Matthew 11:29
Jesus’ heart is for us. He cares for us as a good shepherd cares for his flock. His mercies are new every morning! But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, did not have his heart. He would say to them: “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Matthew 9:13
The Pharisees took pride in their knowledge of scripture, and somehow believed that their salvation came from that knowledge. But their hearts were hard and their minds deceived. They held attitudes that were offensive to God. “For I tell you unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:20
I believe that this vision of the “stuffed shirt,” was given as a warning to the church. Too many of us can become prideful like the Pharisees, thinking that we have earned the respect and envy of others by having this or that spiritual gift. The various tasks we undertake for the Lord can make us feel prideful. When someone bestows praise on us, we can become all puffed up.
We must remain humble in all circumstances. And not with false humility, which is nothing more than deceiving ourselves and others. But in genuine humility:“Humble yourselves before God and he will lift you up.” James 4:10
Let’s allow the Lord to change our hearts and remove any pride and arrogance from us.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:23-24
We are on the potter’s wheel. “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:6
Hallelujah! The Lord is good! Please share this message with others. Let us all grow in the love and grace of the Lord! Be blessed!
