Pride is a deep satisfaction in one's own accomplishments, whether real or imagined.
Arrogance is haughtiness, the desire to be superior to others, whether real or imagined.
Envy is the desire to have what someone else has.
Jealousy is not wanting someone else to have what we don't have.
These traits are growing exponentially in this culture of the end times. Along with these traits comes intense hatred for those who have not offended anyone, requiring the one who is arrogant, prideful, envious, and jealous to concoct stories to validate their own loathing toward those who do not deserve the disrespect extended to them.
They did this to Christ and all the apostles and followers of Christ all down through the ages.
The devil did this in the garden with Adam and Eve. He lied to Eve to foster feelings of distrust in her toward God. The devil hated that God loved His creation and had given them everything good. He not only deceived Eve but also manipulated Eve to deceive her husband. Both people were at fault for accepting the lie of the devil to gratify their own pleasure.
This mentality, "no one tells me", was evident in the garden and rampant in society today.
It wasn't enough that God created them and then gave them every good thing needed for a lovely life; they had to ignore the goodness of God to take the one thing they knew God didn't want them to have, which would bring their downfall.
The devil wanted the first couple to disobey God, move into sin, causing trouble between them as a couple and worse between them and God.
Those who are manipulated by he devil to hate those who love God have all the traits listed above, the very attributes that got the devil thrown out of heaven.
Before a person is born again, they have no genuine love for God or others.
Everything an unsaved person does is based on gratifying and elevating oneself in one's own mind, just as the devil did when he was thrown out of heaven.
Since the devil was chastised by God, he wants to ruin human relationships by fostering pride, arrogance, envy, and jealousy in those who have no defense against him because they do not know the Lord Jesus Christ.
Since the devil was chastised by God, he wants to ruin human relationships by fostering pride, arrogance, envy, and jealousy in those who have no defense against him because they do not know the Lord Jesus Christ.
The goal of the devil is to destroy any possibility of a relationship between God and mankind in any way he can, and he does it through the four traits that began this article.
These four traits are the foundation of every other act of evil that mankind does against one another.
If the devil can cause a person to believe they deserve special treatment, they will not only lean into the evil traits of pride, arrogance, jealousy and envy, but rather than resist it, they will justify it. It is only in Christ that we can resist these character flaws that lead to destruction.
God told us the end times would be "perilous" (ragingly insane) with the very attributes of the devil that caused his downfall and eventual final existence in hell for eternity.
Thank the Lord for His provision of Facebook, that every believer who is led by the Spirit of Christ can warn the world about sin and hell from their own homes.
We are so close to the end of the church age that those who are looking for the coming of Christ have a sense of immanence that dwells in them every day, even a joy and hope that this will all be over soon and they will be going home, their eternal home.
They see with their eyes what God described in 2 Timothy 3 when the world will live continually dominated by the evil mentality of the devil. In these end times, people will be rude, mean, and destructive to relationships and think they are doing the right thing.
We see the departure from the things of God as people embrace lies using the scripture to appear righteous, but are defying God. Many people are changing God's word to meet their own fleshly desires while attacking those who are telling the truth about what is going on in the world.
2 Timothy 4:2-4 "…2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and encourage with every form of patient instruction. 3 For the time will come when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires. 4 So they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths."
2 Timothy 3:1-5 "1 But understand this: In the last days, terrible (ragingly insane) times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without love of good, 4traitorous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5having a form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such as these!"
The churches are more interested in what is going on in politics than they are in obeying and glorifying God. They have, for the most part, become apostate. Few obscure and rare and hard-to-find gatherings are still following Christ and depending on His Word. The Authentic church is the rare exception now, the remnant God calls it.
My hope is that this will encourage believers to keep looking up. Their hope and joy will keep them from being emotionally and spiritually damaged by all that is going on around them. It will also help them maintain their confidence in Christ, no matter what others are doing against them.
Keep Looking Up!!!!!
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