Elevate Your Day with Andi and Brian Hale

Pride and Shame - Day 4 of 5; SPIRIT

from Pride and Shame on Youversion
What truths to do we need to take hold of in order to live a life of humility?
First and foremost, we need to take to heart the opening line of Rick Warren’s, The Purpose-Driven Life: “It’s not about you.”
This may seem a little, um . . . obvious, but so often in our culture we lose sight of this. Our lives tend to revolve around a planet of one, and anything not within that tiny orbit has a tendency to get neglected. But we can’t pin this all on our society; our flesh is wired for exactly the same thing. The flesh is concerned for only one thing – itself – and will go to great lengths to promote and indulge it.
And this is where Christ steps in and sets us free from a life of fleshly indulgence. He came not only as an example of someone who lived a godly life but to also provide us with the power to do it.

Pride and Shame - Day 3 of 5; HUMILITY

from Pride and Shame on Youversion
What is the radical solution to pride and shame?
Humility.
Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.
‭‭PROVERBS‬ ‭11:2‬ ‭NLT‬‬
If that doesn’t sound very radical . . . it really is. To be humble in this day and age is to defy all cultural norms. Our society (like most societies in history) holds up performance and public opinion as the two great defining bastions of self-worth. Those who perform get applauded and rewarded, while those who fail to do so largely get ignored.

Pride and Shame - Day 2 of 5; SHAME

from Pride and Shame on Youversion
“You should be ashamed of yourself!”
Ever heard those words before? From a teacher, a parent . . . or perhaps even yourself? Shame (and its close cousin guilt) is one of the most effective tools for emotional manipulation, and while it can have an outwardly positive effect on our behavior (at least in the short run), more often it simply reinforces the negative thought patterns that motivated us to do wrong in the first place. Shame in our minds and in our hearts can make us feel bad for what we’ve done, but it’s powerless to ensure we’ll do right the next time. In reality, it churns us more than it turns us.
And that’s the enemy’s strategy.

Pride and Shame - Day 1 of 5; PRIDE

from Pride and Shame on Youversion
The text message from my wife was troubling: “Our son got in trouble three times at school today.” This was very uncharacteristic of him (thankfully), and while part of me wanted to overlook it as an uncommon occurrence, my wife and I both knew that a consequence was needed to drive home the point that his behavior was unacceptable. When he got home from school that day, we talked about what happened and he received his consequence. My wife and I worried about how he would respond (would his behavior escalate as a result?), but he handled it like a champ. The next morning, we both talked about how proud we were of his response.
This is the good kind of pride, the kind that focuses on and recognizes the value and goodness in another person, especially someone or something we feel in some way responsible for. This is the natural pride of loving what is good and celebrating it among the people around us.
But then there is a different kind of pride – a pride that is more about self than it is about others. This pride centers around me (what I have done, what I possess, how I look – all of my “credentials”) and rather than celebrating others, it can actually work against them. Pride is often the fuel of self-promotion, self-protection, and self-praise, with self being the common denominator. This kind of pride loves to do good not for the sake of the good itself but for how it makes me look. Pride is sometimes hard to spot because it can so easily masquerade as virtue.
‭‭Haughty eyes, a proud heart, and evil actions are all sin.
‭‭PROVERBS‬ ‭21:4‬ ‭NLT
But when we allow pride to creep in (or when we throw open the front door to it), we find ourselves like the proverbial cat up the tree: enjoying the view from our high perch but unaware that there is no easy way down. Scripture clearly illustrates this: throughout the Old and New Testaments, the proud are typically referred to in the context of being brought low. God simply won’t stand for it; He will deal with it in our lives and get rid of it.
For the Lord of Heaven’s Armies has a day of reckoning. He will punish the proud and mighty and bring down everything that is exalted.
‭‭ISAIAH‬ ‭2:12‬ ‭NLT‬‬
Sometimes, however, the most painful consequence of our pride comes not from God Himself but from our own self-criticism – when pride takes a nosedive. When this happens, our self-approval turns to self-judgment, and it’s remarkable how skilled we can be at piling it upon ourselves. And we call the emotion that accompanies this, shame.
Is there an antidote to this deadly, destructive pride? Yes there is, but before we reveal it, we have to give shame a closer look and discover that pride and shame really are two sides of the same coin.
And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
‭‭JAMES‬ ‭4:6‬ ‭NLT‬‬
Prayer: Father, it is clear that You take a very dim view of pride and oppose it wherever You see it. Teach me how to let go of my pride and embrace You instead. Show me in the life of Your Son how to do this, and let me walk in His ways instead. In Jesus’ name, amen.
 

Find Your People Day 5 of 5

Finding Our People
Find Your People, Day 5
By Jennie Allen
Read by Andi and Brian Hale
Ephesians 2 tells us that we—you and I and everyone ever to live—were dead in our trespasses and sins and that we were children of wrath, meaning that we deserved for God to send a meteor our way. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:3-5).
Jesus rescuing us from our sin and giving us a way out changes not only our eternal future with Him, but also empowers us to love like Him here. “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18).
You and I are to give that reconciliation and hope away to living, breathing, broken, longing people. God purposefully set you in your place and in your time to love people in such a way that they will feel their way toward Him and find Him.
Jesus not only provides the means to live a full, thriving life with each other and with Father God, He also modeled how it would look! He laughed and learned and sang and grew up in the context of a village. He found His people in unexpected places, not universities or temples. His people were prostitutes, uneducated fishermen, hated tax collectors, children, and mothers-in-law. They were often, by any onlooker’s estimation, the wrong ethnicity, the wrong gender, the wrong age, the wrong status, the wrong personality type, the wrong people.
Jesus’s people were all wrong—except that they were willing. And they were wanting. And they were all in.
Jesus made a habit of pushing away crowds and eating with His twelve. Within that twelve, there were three He spent the most time with. But what began in a village with a tight group of people would reach generations and the ends of the earth. This is the endgame of community: we find our people, and together we build safe, beautiful outposts that offer the love of God.
God, in this weary, tired world it feels like just more work to be “all in” with people who have hurt us or could hurt us. Help me to focus on the endgame: building a community, a circle of friends, that can be a beautiful beacon of Your love. May nothing stand in the way of the relationships You are preparing for me. Amen.
I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
JOHN 15:15
But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—
EPHESIANS 2:4‭-‬8
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
2 CORINTHIANS 5:17‭-‬19