MAKINGitPERSONAL
Practical Applications
LIVING A BROKEN LIFE This three-part exercise is designed to help reveal any pride lurking in your heart, so you can repent of it and move forward in the joy of humility. PART 1: ASK THE HOLY SPIRIT “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24 kjv). Ask God to bring to mind any instances of pride, arrogance, or rebellion that need to be confessed. Then, on the basis of 1 John 1:9, seek the forgiveness and cleansing of God. If your pride has caused harm to people around you, plan to seek their forgiveness as well.
Part 2: Evaluate Your Level of Brokenness Before God A proud heart, like a wild stallion, runs unbridled based on its own desires. A broken heart, on the other hand, has yielded its will to Jesus as Lord. Check each box that best describes your life up until now. If any indicators of pride are revealed, pray through each of them and ask for God’s grace to walk in humility. As David prayed in Psalm 51, “A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
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o PROUD: focus on the failures of others o BROKEN: are overwhelmed with a sense of their own spiritual need
o PROUD: have an independent, self-sufficient spirit o BROKEN: have a dependent spirit; recognize their need for others
o PROUD: have a critical, fault-finding spirit; look at everyone else’s faults with a microscope but their own with a telescope
o PROUD: have to prove that they are right o BROKEN: are willing to yield the right to be right
o BROKEN: are compassionate; forgive because they know how much they have been forgiven
o PROUD: claim rights; have a demanding spirit o BROKEN: yield their rights; have a meek spirit
o PROUD: are self-righteous and look down on others o BROKEN: esteem others better than themselves
o PROUD: are self-protective of their time, their rights, and their reputation o BROKEN: are self-denying
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