I am nowhere near the person portions of my memories seem to remember myself as.
“For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” (Romans 12:3)
Pride will do that to a person, and if many of those memories are nothing more than fabrications of the mind, false memories, then that is an attempt to gain a sense of pride that really was never there.
In other words my friends, some people want to remember themselves as someone they never were.
Another line from an old song for you that fits perfectly here.
“It’s too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw around.”
The beautiful, attractive woman who has grown old has nothing left but memories, she is no longer sought after as she once was. Nothing is left to the sports star but an occasional interview about that which once was.
“Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.” (James 4:10)
Pride within oneself is a beast that must be fed continuously, daily, or it will die, and that is how you kill it. The Holy Spirit will help you in this, but He will not completely remove it, any more than He will remove your ability to sin against the will of God in any manner.
Pride is an urge of the flesh, of our old, sinful nature, and like any urge, any desire, we can and should ask the Lord to assist us in removing them, and it is not that in some cases He has not done that, for He has. But if we are to learn through these battles, if we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord in this respect, then removing those urges is not the answer.
Fighting against them is.
And the Almighty has decided that this is one of the best ways for that to happen.
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.” (Eze. 36:26)
A stoney heart does not care what you or God or anyone else thinks about them, they are all that matters in their own minds. Pride is sought after, lusts are envisioned and accomplished, sin is irrelevant, it is a foreign word to them, all that matters is that the desires are met. These are the brute beasts, these are those who have been given over to a reprobate mind, these are those that the Lord has stopped knocking on the hearts of.
But when He does at the last day, that stoney heart will break into pieces. Far too late though. Far too late.
“And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.” (Matt. 25:33)
Pride does not die with old age, lusts do not dissipate, unmet desires still call to those who can no longer fulfill them, and it is how you handle them, how you address them when they call to you, when your flesh that must serve the law of sin attempts to resurrect that which you abhor that will further mold that heart of flesh which you have been blessed to receive.
Denying within yourself that they do not exist, no matter what age you are, is most definitely the wrong part of the path, it is an attempt to deny that the battle even exists.
I am a prideful, lustful, self-centered, conceited man, saved by grace through faith. But my mind serves the Lord Jesus Christ.
“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24)
You cannot remove the flesh in which there is no good thing, but you can stand against it. The armor that we have been blessed to receive protects us from external attacks, you are to fight the battle from inside of yourself. Don’t let your flesh defeat or deceive you. Or cause you to believe you are not who you are.
Hid in Christ.
