The Way Up Is Down | Daily Devotional 1624

You're listening to the My Morning Devotional Podcast, episode 1624. Today's demo is called The Way Up Is Down. Hey there, we're the Alexis, a ministry family working together in our church in Miami, Florida. And if you're like us, when days get busy, the to-do lists get longer, it can be hard to find devotional time. That's why every weekday we share a five-minute daily dose of heaven. This is the My Morning Devotional Podcast. Happy Thursday, everybody. I am excited to jump into today's devotional. Again, if you want more on this topic of James chapter 4, then respond. Reach out to us because we're putting a newsletter together and we want to share it with you. Just a longer journal or a longer devotional that you can read and be a part of. All right, we're going to pick up on James chapter 4, verses 10. I will tell you, I'll just give you a little insight here. Verse 9. You might be saying, Gabby, we're going verse by verse and you missed out on verse 9. Well, I'm going to read to you verse 9. So you know what we're not talking about today. We left off on verse 8. It says, draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts, you double-minded. This is what I'm not skipping, but I'm just not going to talk about it today. Because he says, Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. There's a message in there somewhere. The Lord just hasn't revealed it to me yet. Okay, so we're going to jump into verse 10. And verse 10 says this, and this is another hard one that challenges all of us listening. Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will exalt you. Humble yourself before the Lord and He will exalt you. Now we have to define the word humility because I think at times we can lose sight and forget what that word truly means. Because humility, it's not thinking you're worthless. Humility is not a martyr complex that you're constantly sacrificing yourself or thinking of others and putting other people's needs before yourself. Meanwhile, we're expecting others to notice our sacrifice. No, that's not that's not humility. You see, humility is recognizing that God is God and I am not. Humility is saying and realizing God is in control, He is the maker of the heavens and the earth. He has ordered my steps, and Hill His will, and His will is greater than mine. And I am the opposite of all those things. I am not God. I am not the ruler of this earth. Because here's where we can get stuck in our pride. And pride comes up in ways that we've never seen it before, and it it's really sneaky. It's like a snake in the garden that you don't notice. And then once you notice it, it's very terrifying. Because pride can live amongst the garden of our life and the gardens of our heart. And we never notice it's there. And we might see some residue of it, we might see some evidence of it, we might see the effects of it, but sometimes we don't recognize what it truly is. Funny enough, speaking of that analogy of snake in the garden, I was at someone's house and they had the most beautiful backyard. And I mean the trees, the landscaping, the pool stunning. They just took such good care of this backyard. And I'm walking back there and there's no bugs, there's no nothing. I don't know how they did it. But all of a sudden I see in by a tree there was snakeskin. And it was the the shedding of the snakeskin that showed itself by the tree. And I said, Hey, look, there's there's a snake here. Do they even realize? And it was a long snakeskin that had been shed outside in the backyard. And immediately I realized, okay, we're not alone here. There's something in this backyard that I can't see really what it is, but based on that, I'm picking up that there's a snake here. Based on the skin, a snake's not far off. You see, pride will do the same thing. Pride will show up as martyrdom. Pride will show up as choosing your way or the highway. Pride will start to show up when you start to remove people in your life because they're challenging your thinking. They might disagree with what you say because they're trying to make you better. They might cause a little bit of friction in your life because they're trying to sharpen you. As iron sharpens iron, they're actually helping you. But because of that friction, you think they're hurting you and you think they're against you. And so you start to say, Well, I can't trust anyone. I can only trust myself. That is slowly showing you that there is pride in your heart. And that evidence is something that we have to respond to. Because, guys, following Christ and a heart full of pride will never go together. Those are two puzzle pieces that will never fit. You can try to make it fit, but you'll break the puzzle all throughout. Because pride and following Christ doesn't go together. Why? Because we are to humble ourselves before the Lord. You see, humility is recognizing, I said it earlier, that God is God. It's seeing that God is greater, it's trusting his wisdom over our own and being willing to surrender our way for his way. So I'm going to give you a couple of humility sayings. What humility says, and I want you in your mind or in your car, you can say it out loud. If this is you, I want you to respond with, that's me. Or if you need to start saying this, I want you to respond with that's me. You ready? Humility says, Lord, I don't have to control everything. That's me. Humility says, Lord, I don't have all the answers. That's me again. And humility says, Lord, your way is better than mine. That is me times three. I need all of those. You see, we don't have to fight for our plans, we don't have to fight for our desires. When we trust God with our lives, and we can humble ourselves because we know that this and this is key. God sees us, he loves us, and he knows what's best. He ends this verse by saying this that when we humble ourselves before the Lord, he will exalt you. And this isn't a worldly exaltation. This isn't higher status, more money, more people loving and knowing you, more attention. No. It has nothing to do with our status at all. This exaltation is spiritual elevation. It's greater maturity, greater understanding of who God is, and ultimately it's spiritual growth. And true spiritual growth comes from humbling ourselves before God, not elevating ourselves before others. Let's pray. Lord, we humble ourselves for you today. God, you're so faithful. And Lord, I just pray that if there's anyone that is listening, that might be struggling with pride, that might be struggling with trying to make things about ourselves or advance ourselves and elevate ourselves, Lord, and trying to do that and fight for that on our own. Then, Holy Spirit, I ask that you would soften our hearts, that you would show us the ways in our heart that there might be pride. And ultimately, you would lead us. Ultimately, you would lead us to humility. We humble ourselves before you and we follow after you in Jesus' name. Amen. So there you have it, your five minute daily dose of heaven. Thank you so much for tuning in today. We pray these devotionals empower you to take on your day. If you've found value in this devotional, share it with a friend, leave a comment or review for us on the app you're using right now. Until tomorrow, we pray that your latte is strong, but your love for Jesus is stronger.