SHUN SPIRITUAL PRIDE by Awotiku Akinlayo David

Hello! “Matured Christians”, How Far? Yes! I’m talking to you. You have grown so much that you feel the only people you can learn from their sermons and exhortations are “the big men of God”, audio messages or books from people like Arch Bishop Benson Idahosa, Apostle Joshua Selman, Bishop David Oyedepo, Pastor Chris and the likes. You feel they are the only ones that can bless your life or can rightly dispense the mind of God deeply to you.

You have grown so much in the knowledge and understanding of the Scripture that you think the only way through which God can speak to you, aside those great men of God, is your own personal meeting or quiet time, alone with God. You have so much dwelt in private just studying and praying. And now you have subconsciously neglected the fellowship of believers, you feel they don’t know enough to bless you, you feel it’s a waste of time to fellowship with younger Christians in faith, you refer to them as babes, this is a wrong and polluted mindset, take heed! You feel you are higher than them in the spiritual things and hence they don’t have adequate spiritual truths to bless you with, neither can they get a direct message from God for you. Shun spiritual pride!

That friend of yours has always been coming to learn from you, you dish out the raw meat of the Word to him, he leaves with new and updated “rhema” of the spirit, and you have always been helping him to grow, improve in spiritual exercises and get vast knowledge and understanding of spiritual truth. Now you think he can’t correct you, you think you are spiritually matured than him or you are older than him in faith and knowledge. He’s your supposed son or mentee and you are now of the opinion that he does not have enough capacity to accurately give you a direct instruction or warning from God, you feel you can’t be blessed by God’s messages through him nor sit quietly under his ministration. Shun Spiritual Pride!

You are supposed to be present in a fellowship programme currently going on and that is when you remember you are supposed to go for your private prayers and quiet time, you think it’s the appointed time to do some personal chores or to listen to audio or video sermons of great men of faith. In the process you intentionally neglected that fellowship just because you think your spirituality had superseded their messages and prayers, you feel the fellowship is not met for you but for babes who are not as matured a Christian as you are. Friend, Shun Spiritual Pride.

Also you attend those fellowship meetings and just create an optional work for yourself that gets you preoccupied right inside the fellowship as the sermon is going on because you see it as waste of time to listen and learn from them, you have limited who God can use to bless you. My brother, my sister, Shun Spiritual Pride! It is a very dangerous assumption.

Proverbs 27:17 – ‘Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.’ [RSV] The Bible didn’t say BIGGER iron sharpens SMALLER iron, iron sharpens iron, it can either be bigger ones or smaller ones, but the factor to put in mind is it has to be iron, to sharpen any other iron.

Luke 2:46-47 – ‘Now so it was that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers.’ [NKJV] Despite that Jesus is God and knows everything, He still lingered behind to stay with the teachers of the law, rubbing minds together with them. To be realistic, we can’t compare these teachers’ spiritual lives, knowledge and their intellectual understanding of God to Jesus’, and besides, He was their subject of discussion and yet unknown to them.

Romans 15:32 – ‘Then I will be able to come to you with a happy heart by the will of God, and we can refresh each other.’ [TLB] The romans are people that are nothing compared to Apostle Paul in the Spiritual realm, but yet Paul desire to visit them so that they can sharpen themselves and refresh themselves, it simply implies that it is a two way concord, ‘I’ll bless you with my experiences and understanding and likewise be blessed through your own experiences and understanding.

I am not saying it is wrong to listen to those aforementioned great people’s messages or read their books. As a matter of fact, I have lots of messages of different great men of faith including their books, but the fact remains that your channel of blessings is not exclusive to their messages and books alone, there are many other people, young men of faith, young Christian and new converts who God can use to bless your life, it may just come with one word and God will impact you with that simple and precise word.

Make inquiries about those great men of God, many of them not only rub minds together with their children in the faith but still sit down under the sermons of their Sons and daughters in faith just to learn and get blessed through their messages, most of them still take audio records of those young pastors and they hear God speaks to them and are blessed through those messages. They don’t see themselves as fountain of knowledge. A perfect model for this subject is Pastor E.A. Adeboye. Several times he sits to listen to any of those he brought up in the faith stand on the pulpit to give sermons divinely inspired by God Himself. The hidden truth therein is that it is another level of spiritual maturity to be receptive always and to rub minds with younger Christians, to also sit under their sermons, learn and hear God speaking through them.

I write these things to you so that you may know that you are unconsciously giving in to spiritual pride, it is time to rethink and be careful of your approach towards what you call a “younger Christian’s messages or fellowship of low spiritual growing Christians”. Be ready to learn from anyone that comes your way and from such fellowships especially when the messages are affirmed to be coming directly from God so far it is this same Holy Spirit that lives in all.

We are not serving great men of God but God Himself therefore do not limit ways of which God can speak to you as being from these men of God alone, let God use anyone and in various ways to bless you, correct, rebuke and instruct you in righteousness. It can be from those great men of God but also it can be coming from someone who just got born again through your sermon or from someone who is not matured enough spiritually to your level. It can come from someone who just got born again recently, whereas you have gotten born again for over 10 years ago.

You have to be disciplined, plan your time and put those fellowship meeting time into your daily plans, put it in mind to attend and be expectant from God to bless you through anyone of them. Don’t shun those small cells, so far it is God’s gathering; be assured of God’s presence in their meetings.

Of course you might know more than all of them and you might have a better understanding and clearer knowledge of the word of God more than them all, but the truth remains that you can still get blessed by God through them. They can give a message that will hit your heart strongly, piercing through the marrow of your heart; it will have a great impact on your life, touch your soul and affect your spirit. But if you have zeroed your mind not to get blessed through them by God then it might be so and the message God has for you will not reach you because you have excused yourself from the meeting and blocked a medium of which God can speak to you. You might as well be thinking that God will surely find another way to give you such message but the truth is if God wants it to come through young Christians, it is for a reason, it could be His unique way of training you or teaching you to shun spiritual pride. Also don’t be distracted if you unconsciously see yourself in those kinds of gathering, don’t think of grading their spiritual levels with yours.

Spiritual Pride is a very dangerous virus; it creeps in unnoticed and exposes you in public. Learn to appreciate the gathering of young Christians; it is also another great opportunity to share your deeper rhemas with them. Love their company, help to build their spiritual life, listen carefully to their sermons, you can correct any errors that come from them and it will help them grow. Be conscious that you are rubbing minds with them; we are to sharpen ourselves to make ourselves grow better and stronger together.

There are times the spirit can lead you elsewhere instead of joining such gathering, I’m not disputing that fact but be sure it is the Spirit of God and not because of spiritual pride, you have to follow the spirit all the times and be led as he is directing you. I’m sure he will rightly lead you to where you are supposed to be per time.

There is always a message for you from God in any gathering you find yourself either small or big in size, either in fellowship with high level spiritual personnel or low level spiritual personnel. Be careful not to lose the message due to your spiritual pride. It is well with you always. (Psalms 8:2, Hebrews 10:25)

I say to you again “SHUN SPIRITUAL PRIDE. It is dangerous and deadly.”

I love y’all

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