PRIDE (revisited)

Vanity (Pride), the mother of all sins.

Wong, Ben and i were talking for almost 3 hours at Broadway over dinner, touching on so many issues about God and Christianity. At the end of the fellowship, i really received revelation after revelation from whom i call my 'spiritual starters'. :D

We spoke abt the brokenness of King David, Knowledge vs Wisdom and the effect of expectations of God's future on us and over-moralistic religious Christians.

Almost everything, in the end, boiled down to the always forsaken pride and humility.

What struck me the most was something that Ben said:
"When you receive the love and salvation of God, there's no need for church elders or spiritual leaders to tell you this and that, what to do and what not to do. There's no need to be outwardly pious and yet unfulfilled on the inside. When the Holy Spirit falls upon you, the cleansing is automatic and your old man is stripped off bit by bit."

Sometimes as Christian, we become so moralistic and judgemental, as though we are better and more morally upright than other ppl in the world. And because of that, we judge them for what they wear, how they behave, and push for our views to work in their lives.

As Christians to non-believers: There should never be an element of judgement because we were all once like them. Sinners, but called to repentance. How we got to be Christians was because a Christian did not judge us or criticize our wrongdoings, but rather, loved us and brought us to the Love of Christ.

As Christians to other Christians: We found this to be a greater problem now. ): Moralistic expectations stem from the root of judgement. A moralistic Christian expects other Christians to be like himself, to "blend in with us Christians", when God has made as all to be unique. There is no "correct attire", or "proper behavior", it's not by the works of what the person does, but rather, by the condition of his heart. To judge others is to set expectations or compare, and of which is founded on pride. When one is proud, one is oblivious to the exact Word of God, and will judge a person, or even a whole church, by how they dress and act. Which is quite stupid, really.

There are so many things i wish i could type here for future reference.
But of course, there's no time and i need to go study ):
Hopefully, the Holy Spirit will remind me of our conversation in due season (:

And it was really weird praying in the middle of Broadway. Haha!