All the kings on the west side of the Jordan heard about this, including those in the highlands, the lowlands, and along the entire coast of the Mediterranean Sea toward Lebanon. They were Hittites and Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. They formed an alliance to fight Joshua and Israel.
Joshua 9:1-2 (CEB)
Last week, we saw that the first type of emotion that will confront you when God tells you to do something is fear. Once you get over the fear that was holding you back and you begin to succeed in that assignment, the next evil spirit that you will have to confront and defeat is pride.
Amorites – spirits of pride
Amorite means, “mountain dwellers; renowned, publicity, prominence”. Since mountains refer to tall and impressive land masses that dominate over valleys, we can infer that the Amorite spirit is a spirit of self-exaltation. The word for Amorite in Hebrew comes from another Hebrew word, amar, which means, “to utter, say”; this implies that people with Amorite spirits are people who want to be prominent and want their name uttered or mentioned.
Amorites are fame-seekers, seekers of human glory and greatness. Just as mountains tend to dominate over the landscape they are in, Amorites are people who like to dominate and rule over others. They tend to establish an imposing and seemingly immovable presence[1].
Anytime The Lord begins to bless you and gives you success in your area of assignment, you must watch out for pride because it will try to creep in. We need to know how to overcome pride because God is opposed to the proud but He gives grace to the lowly (James 4:6).
How do you overcome pride?
The Bible tells us that the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. Below is a list of some of those weapons we can use to overcome pride:
- Do not entertain proud thoughts
Before the fall of Lucifer who became Satan, he said within his heart that he will ascend to the heavens; raise his throne above the stars of God (wanted prominence); and “I will make myself like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:13-14). Therefore he had sinned in his heart even before he carried out his rebellion against God.
Pride begins in the heart therefore we must capture every proud thought that raises itself against what the Word of God says and make it give up and obey Christ (2 Corinthians 10:4-6).
When the thought of pride comes, you must recognise that it is not of God therefore do not entertain it by dwelling on it, but stop it, tell it that it must go in Jesus name and instead focus your mind on thinking thoughts that are true, noble, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8);
- Ask God to give you a humble spirit
We must come daily to The Lord in prayer and ask Him to remove the heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26); a heart that is gentle and humble, a heart like Jesus (Matthew 11:29);
- Ask The Lord to continuously search you and show you your heart
It’s easy to assume that we are walking in humility however like David we too should ask The Lord daily to search us and know our hearts, try us and know our thoughts and see if there is any wickedness of pride in our hearts and lead us to the right path (Psalm 139:23-24);
- Give God all the glory and recognise that you can do nothing without His grace;
We must recognise that it is by the grace of God upon our lives that we are what we are (1 Corinthians 15:10). This should keep us humble knowing that we can do nothing without God and all that we have (being alive, our health, family, gifts, talents, jobs, ministry, business etc.) is by the grace of God that is with us. If we are mindful of this then even when we receive praise from men we would not let it get to our head but would instead give God all the praise and glory for what He has done (Psalm 105:1);
- Spend time with wise people
Proverbs 27:17 tells us that iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend. To remain humble, it is important to spend time with wise friends and people we can give an account to, who will in a lovely way correct us when we are wrong.
Prayer
Dear Lord, I know You are against the proud, but You are kind to the humble. I recognise that sometimes my heart is proud therefore please give me a new heart and put a new spirit in me; remove from me the heart of pride and give me a gentle and humble heart in Jesus name.
For more suggestions on how to remain humble please see the article by John Piper
Listen to the Message
You can also listen to this message on YouTube here.
How to Discover Your Life’s Purpose Through Dreams
Do you know God’s purpose for your life? If not, please listen to the audio version of: How to Discover Your Life’s Purpose Through Dreams
God bless,
Blessing
[1] For more information about the Hittite spirit and how to overcome them, please visit http://shamah-elim.info/amorite.htm
blessingtheo 