The Better Choice

DEVOTION 1 PETER THE BETTER CHOICE 1 Peter 5:5-7 5 Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. NIV Pride is an awful condition for a believer to find themselves in. Pride says I can do all things by myself. Pride says I am so much better then all you others. Pride says I know more about it then you do. Pride says I am capable of judging behaviors and attitudes in others. This idea of clothing ourselves with humility toward each other is foreign to the human nature we came to Christ with, that is might be one of the difficult changes in our thought process. Yet in and of ourselves we know it is an impossible task and that we need to work of the Holy Spirit in us to accomplish this behavior. That is why we must humble ourselves before the Lord. We must admit to him our total complete failure to be able to do this on our own. We have to humble ourselves in the sense we are worthless without him, we have no value without him, we are lost and without hope of escaping death without him. There is no righteousness in us, without him. He is everything, all we will ever need for everything in this life. Nothing we can do is good enough to meet his standard. If we think we can overcome sin on our own we are filled with pride. That is why we must cast all our anxiety on him. Even those day by day needs we have a tendency to worry about. Worry says we do not trust him to care for us. Worry says we do not think he will actually take care of us. Worry says we do not believe. Worry says we think we can actually find the solution on our own because we are concerned and am trying to do something about it, which is also being prideful because we are not looking to him, but to us for the answer. Who here is greater than God? Pride says, “I am”. If we actually humble ourselves before Him then we will be able to exhibit humility toward each other. So we choose who to believe in, Him or ourselves. We choose humility or pride. Humility is the better choice.