Dear Ones,
Hope you had a wonderful weekend. We got a nice surprise yesterday as longtime friends came to church and over for lunch and time for fellowship and prayer. I had to swallow my pride as the house was not so neat and I served what we had on hand but as you will read in the devotion today, pride has to go! 
Devotions from Judy’s heart
   Pride is not pretty but rather stinky! Pride is something we have to deal with all our life and we are reminded often to be humble. Scripture is full of words about pride and examples of those the Lord humbled when they got full of self. As I read today, we can’t be full of God if we are full of ourselves. Something has to go and that is our pride.                                                                                                                                    When Jesus was speaking with His disciples, he told them not to be like the Pharisees in how they lived out their behavior. In Matt. 23:5-7, He said, “Be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It’s all spit-and-polish veneer.”                                                                                                                                                                                                        But what about us? Our lives are good indicators if we are prideful for is shows up in being judgmental (We are better everyone else), or if we aren’t correctable (we always are right), or if we have an opinion on everything (after all we know everything!) Even our thoughts make us aware that we are prideful and relying on ourselves rather than God. We need an attitude of humility for apart from the Lord we can do nothing!  Further on in verses 11-12, Jesus said, ”Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you’ll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you’re content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.”                                                               
    We are not to be puffed up like the Pharisees but humble, relying on God, not ourselves. Our greatness comes from serving God and others and we are promised His grace if we are humble. Let us dare to ask the Lord to help us see our pride and to humble ourselves before Him and others.
Challenge for today: Do a humble act of service for someone today!