It Sounds Like The First Line Of Pride

You made something good last month and you have not been able to say the word.

You can say it was all right. You can say it came out. You can say the customer was happy, which puts the judgment in somebody else's mouth. What you cannot do is stand in your own yard and say that thing I made is good.

And the reason is specific, and you have never examined it. It sounds like the first line of pride. It sounds like the sentence a man says just before he becomes somebody nobody can stand.

So you have made a rule out of a sound. You have never tested whether the word actually is pride, or whether it only rhymes with it, and you have been living under the rule for about twenty five years.

I am not going to turn this into a lesson about humility, because that would take the good thing straight back off you. I am going to show you a sentence from David that has gladness and giving in the same breath.

Of thine own have we given thee

There is a prayer in 1 Chronicles at the end of an enormous act of generosity, and what makes it remarkable is that David is plainly delighted and also plainly clear about the source.

The people have given for the temple and he is glad about it and he says so, and then he says this.

But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee. (1 Chronicles 29:14, King James Version)

You are able to be glad and give it back at the same time, and the two have never once been in competition. 1 Chronicles 29:14 has a man rejoice over what was made and given and name God as the source in the same breath, and the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that to a yard at dusk with finished work standing in warm light.

Look at the shape of it. He does not say, therefore it is not really anything. He does not take the gladness back. The whole passage is a man plainly pleased, and in the middle of it he says of thine own have we given thee.

Both are there. The delight is not deleted by the source and the source is not denied by the delight, and neither one cancels the other, and they are in the same sentence.

You have permission for both at once, and the gladness has never once needed to be removed to make room for God. The Spirit of God is the one who makes a prayer over an offering reach a man standing beside his own finished work, and 1 Chronicles 29:14 holds the rejoicing and the giving back together without either one canceling the other.

The word is not what you think

Let me say what pride actually is, because what has been avoided here is a word rather than a thing.

Pride is a comparison and a refusal. It says I am better than that man, and it says I did this without anybody. Neither of those is in the sentence that thing I made is good. That sentence contains no other person and no claim about where the ability came from.

You were never anywhere near pride, and an accurate word has never once been the same as a claim. The Holy Spirit is the one who shows a man the difference between a sound and a thing, and the written word has a man delighted and giving credit in one breath in 1 Chronicles 29:14.

And here is what the rule has cost, and it is not abstract. Twenty five years of work, and you have not been able to say one true sentence about any of it, and the men who work near you have never heard you name anything you made.

The rule was meant to keep you safe from being a certain kind of man. It has also kept you from being an honest one about your own trade.

You are able to say an accurate thing, and accuracy has never once been the doorway to anything. His Spirit is the one who separates a sound from a substance in a man's head, and 1 Chronicles 29:14 puts the delight and the source in a single line.

Say it, then hand it back

So here is the exercise, and it has both halves on purpose.

Say out loud that the last thing you made was good. Then, in the same breath, give it back. That is good, and He gave me the hands for it.

You are able to say both halves in one sentence, and neither half has ever once canceled the other. 1 Chronicles 29:14 has a man plainly glad and plainly clear about the source in one line, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that sentence possible for a man who has never said the first half.

The order matters more than it should. Say the good part first. If you lead with the giving back, the gladness never actually gets said, which is what has been happening for twenty five years.

And if somebody hears you, let them. You are not making a speech, you are saying a true thing in a yard, and there is nothing in it for anybody to take offense at.

You were never going to become a different man by saying one true sentence, and it has never once happened to anybody. The Spirit of God carries an accurate word past a rule made out of a sound, and the written word says of thine own have we given thee in the middle of open gladness in 1 Chronicles 29:14.