Rodney Howard Browne shares a teaching on Pride

Let not the foot of pride come against me, and let not the hand of the wicked drive me away.

Psalms 36:11 NKJV

Rodney Howard Browne teaches us that in life, we are faced with two kinds of enemies – those from within and those from without. Pride comes from within and the wicked man comes from without. The way that this particular verse of scripture is rendered in certain other translations of the Bible, is to the effect that the foot of pride – or arrogance – belongs to another person coming from without. However, pride and arrogance will seek to claim your life whether coming from the inside or the outside – whether it is in your heart or your enemy’s heart. Most of the time – the outside influences are less potent against us than inside influences. Because God has promised to protect us from without – and He always does a good job – but we are responsible to guard our own heart and unfortunately we don’t always do such a good job.

And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”Mark 7:20-23 NKJV

Rodney Howard Browne shows us that pride is an evil thing that comes from the heart of man, defiling him.It is as evil, in God’s eyes, as any other sin that man can commit. Proverbs 16:5 says, “Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD.” Proverbs 6:16-17 says, that of the seven things that are an abomination to the LORD and that He hates, one of them is a proud look. Psalms 101:5 says, “The one who has a haughty look and a proud heart, Him I will not endure.” Proverbs 28:25-26 says, “He who is of a proud heart stirs up strife, but he who trusts in the LORD will be prospered. He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but whoever walks wisely will be delivered.”

When you trust in yourself you are proud and you are foolish. The Lord will not tolerate pride in your heart or in your look or in your actions. Pride is destructive. Pride will destroy your own life. Pride causes division between man and man – and man and God. Pride will separate you from the presence of God. The pride in your life will not allow God’s grace to reach you and without God’s grace, you are lost. If you wish to please God and preserve your soul, you must walk in humility.
The highway of the upright is to depart from evil; He who keeps his way preserves his soul. Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud. Proverbs 16:17-19 NKJV

The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate.Proverbs 8:13 NKJV

If you have any fear or respect for God – you will deal with any prideful attitude that you have. You will treat pride like the sin that it is and you will humble your own heart before the Lord. You must lose your life – lay down your pride and your selfishness – to honor the Lord in your life.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?Matthew 16:24-26 NIV

Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.1 Peter 5:5-9NKJV

Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.James 4:4-10 NKJV

Rodney Howard Browne shares a teaching on Faith

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23 KJV

The Greek word for faith means a firm persuasion, belief, believe, trust, trustworthiness, confidence, acceptance, fidelity and moral conviction. It means reliance upon Jesus Christ for salvation. Faith has to do with what you believe and also the strength of that belief. The word faith is also used to refer to your belief system.

Simply put, faith means believing strongly in God and believing strongly that everything that He says is true. It means to be firmly persuaded. We must have faith in the grace and mercy of God. The only way we can obtain God’s grace and mercy is by faith – we cannot work for it. If you could earn God’s grace then you would not need faith in God. Our faith is essential – not only to ensure our salvation, but in order that we may receive the fulfillment of every promise of God that has been made to us.

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring– not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed– the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead– since he was about a hundred years old– and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

Romans 4:16-21 NIV

Faith is not believing in God only — faith is believing in God without wavering. Faith calls those things that are not as though they are! Faith agrees with the Word of God and not with what we see or feel. Faith speaks the Word of God only — not doubt and unbelief. If you swing between faith and doubt then you don’t have faith at all. You can only have one or the other – not both. Doubt neutralizes your faith. Faith is only faith if you don’t have a plan B.

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. James 1:6-8 NKJ

We don’t get from God the things that He has promised just because He promised them, we get them because we believe that His promises are true.

But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!”

16But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?” So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Romans 10:8-17 NKJ

When we believe God’s Word in our heart then we will speak it out of our mouth. Faith comes by hearing and hearing and hearing the Word of God. You will only be full of what you meditate upon. Luke 6:45 says that we speak out of the overflow of what is in our heart in abundance. And our confession must be in line with our faith or we will not get what we say we are believing for. The fruit of the work of the Spirit in our life is an increase in our faith and trust in God. The more we learn of God, the more we learn to trust Him, because He is faithful who has promised.

Foundation Scriptures: Luke 4:14-19The anointing—in many church meetings being held nowadays—as one preacher said, “is as scarce as hen’s teeth.” You need a magnifying glass to find it. There is little or no anointing present, yet many people claim to be anointed and to have the anointing! One of the first lessons that we need to learn about the anointing is that the anointing is not hype. In some church circles there’s a lot of Hollywood. There’s a lot of hype. At these meetings, you might expect that at any moment they would bring on the wrestlers and have a tag team match in the church. They have fleshly preaching, praying, singing, and dancing—a lot of hoopla—but very minimal, if any, results at all. The anointing is not about who can make the biggest noise—it is about changed lives. We live in a day and age of never-ending entertainment, where people want to come and sit in beautiful, air-conditioned auditoriums and be entertained and impressed on a Sunday morning and night. A minister can stand in the pulpit and scream and jump around or he can look dignified and professional, but if the touch of God is not on the minister’s life, he can forget it—lives will not be changed.

Are You Tired of Hype?

I have attended some large charismatic meetings, where the “who’s who in the charismatic zoo” have been present, and yet the anointing was not manifest. It’s almost like some ministers are afraid that if the Holy Ghost showed up, they might not know what to do. So instead of displaying their spiritual ignorance, they would rather close the meeting down or get into some fleshly works program such as loudly binding the devil or hyping up a service some other way. Then at least the starving sheep might feel that they were dished up something, even if that something was really nothing at all, other than stale doughnuts.

In some Bible schools, they endeavor to teach students how to preach with formulas, but in my estimation that’s equivalent to teaching a pig to sing! You can be taught all the theory concerning the art of preaching, but if there is no anointing or touch of God on your life, it will just be hype.

Some people think that shouting is the anointing, or being professional in your communicative ability is the anointing. However, just stirring people’s emotions, will not bring change. God wants fat hearts -not fat heads. The Gospel is not an intellectual thing it is a spiritual thing.

There are many people who profess to be theologians, but they do not even believe in the virgin birth, the blood of Jesus, or the cross, etc. What good is theology if you don’t believe in God? The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:1 -5, “And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”

The scripture says, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). I told the Lord in the first part of my ministry, that if He was not going to do anything—I was not going to do anything. He told me that it was a case of Him waiting on me—not me waiting on Him. And He said if I would just give Him an opportunity to move, He would move. If we want to be anointed, we must firstly preach the truth of the Word of God with power, not hype.

Secondly, we must neither do nor say anything unless the Lord directs us. We must move when He says move and stop when He says stop. These are lessons that take time to learn, but if we will be patient and put our flesh under and allow our spirit to rise up, we will see the results in our lives. We need to shut our head up and let our heart lead.

When we rest on the Spirit of God, He will anoint us and His anointing will be on us at all times, in all situations, with no hype, but only the genuine article.

Foundation Scriptures: Psalms 139:1-16 Vs.1 O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. Vs. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. Vs. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Vs. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it
completely, O Lord. Vs. 5 You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Vs. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Vs. 7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? Vs. 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. Vs. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, Vs. 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. Vs. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light be come night around me,” Vs. 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. Vs. 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. Vs. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Vs. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Vs. 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Sometimes we feel as if God is so far from us that He does not hear us or care, but that is a lie from hell. God always hears us. He knows us even better than we know ourselves. There is nowhere that we can go to hide from Him because He is everywhere—in the darkness, in the light, in the heavens, on the earth and under it! We cannot escape His eyes, or His ears, or His love, or His care. God sees into the darkness as if it were daylight.

God made and formed us in our mother’s womb. In fact, He knew everything about us before we were even conceived. The miracle of birth is indeed that—a miracle. It is very hard to hold onto evolutionary beliefs as you wonder at the miracle of your newborn baby. How could something so perfect and marvelous be a result of chance and a blob of amoebae? We see an imposing building and we know there was an architect who designed it and a builder who built it. We see an impressive piece of art and we know that an artist somewhere conceived and created it. But the most intricate, specialized creation ever—you and me—some people think just happened by chance. You have to have more “faith” to believe in the evolutionary theories than you need to just believe that there is a Creator and that He did, indeed, create us perfectly—spirit, soul and body. If God watched over us so carefully as we were forming in our mother’s womb and if He knew our days before we even existed, how much more does He watch over us now! He loves us dearly, cares for us tenderly, and is very near to us all the time. No matter what you feel or see, God is very near to you, watching over you, listening to you, and making your way straight before you. You cannot run away from Him. You might as well surrender and let Him have your life and make something beautiful out of it. He is the Master Planner and He has plans for you!

Pastor Rodney Howard Browne encourages people to follow after Jesus!

Matthew 4:18-23(NAS)

18And walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. 19And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” 20And they immediately left the nets, and followed Him. 21And going on from there He saw two other brothers, James the {son} of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and He called them. 22And they immediately left the boat and their father, and followed Him. 23And {Jesus} was going about in all
Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.

Matthew 9:9(NAS)
9And as Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man, called Matthew, sitting in the tax office; and He said to him, “Follow Me!” And he rose, and followed Him.

Peter, Andrew, James, John, and Matthew were all going about their business as usual, when Jesus called on them to follow Him. It appears that they did not even hesitate, they did not argue, they did not make excuses. They dropped everything and instantly obeyed Him. 1 Corinthians 8:3(Amp) says that if we love God truly we will “promptly obey” Him. What a commitment these men had and what blessing was poured out on them. They paid a price, but they were the “first-born from the dead” after Jesus arose from the grave and the world will forever remember them as the pioneers of the church. They got to preach the Gospel first and to see the same miracles that Jesus did, taking place through their lives.

Mark 8:34-38(NAS)
34And He summoned the multitude with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 35″For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s shall save it. 36″For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? 37″For what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? 38″For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

Jesus gave up His needs, wants and desires to come to the earth, walk as a man, humble Himself, suffer persecution, pain, rejection and death for us. We may think that we have given up so much to serve God, but we have given up nothing at all! We have given up sin, sickness, and the wages of sin, which is death! We lose our lower, natural, temporal life for Jesus and we find His higher, spiritual, eternal life. Nothing this world offers can compare with God’s eternal life. The things of this world are so tempting, but as anyone who has had a near-death experience or a vision of heaven will tell you – the things of the world fade into nothing in the presence of God.

Luke 9:57-62(NAS)
57And as they were going along the road, someone said to Him, “I will follow You wherever You go.” 58And Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air {have} nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” 59And He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Permit me first to go and bury my father.” 60But He said to him, “Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.” 61And another also said, “I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.” 62But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

If you have decided to follow Jesus, do it with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Don’t do it half-heartedly. Don’t do it with one foot still in the world. God hates luke-warm Christians. It is all or nothing. Don’t look back longingly at where you have come from. Your old life was not that great. If it were you would still be there. This is your new life. Commit to serve God, holding nothing back. God will be as committed to you as you are to Him – so give Him your best!

The Holy Spirit is the revealer of Jesus to the believer, in the believer and through the believer. Jesus revealed to the believer by the Holy Spirit He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. All things that the Father hath are Mine: therefore said I, that He shall take of mine and show it unto you. John 16: 14 & 15 No one knows Jesus, as well as the Holy Spirit. He was with Christ when they both pre-existed with the Father through eternity past, He was with Him throughout His earthly ministry, through the sacrifice of the cross and the glorious resurrection. The Holy Spirit reveals the nature and character of Jesus to the believer. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, Jesus comes alive to us. He walks out of pages of the Gospel and becomes real and alive in our hearts.

Jesus revealed in the believer by the Holy Ghost But when it pleased God, Who separated me from my mothers womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen….. Gal. 1:15 & 16 The main purpose of the plan of redemption – Jesus giving His life – was to restore man to the image of God, as he was before the fall of Adam. After you be come born-again (John 3:3), the Holy Spirit’s desire is to place Christ’s nature and likeness in your heart, (and the heart of every born-again believer), by revealing Christ in you.

As the Holy Spirit is allowed to work in your life, you will have the Fruit of the Spirit, as mentioned in Gal. 5:22 & 23; and you will grow daily into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13). We need a daily revival in our lives. We need God’s power, His nature and His glory revealed to us and in us so that we can show forth His Glory, which is His desire for us. This is a process which continues in us until we see Him face to face – growing and changing – be coming more like Him every day. Jesus revealed through the believer by the Holy Ghost Mark 16:20 says that they (the disciples) went forth and preached everywhere and God confirmed the word with signs following. What was actually happening was the spirit being revealed through the believers, as they yielded to the Holy Spirit, as willing vessels. Jesus said that the believer would do the works that He did and greater works, because He was going to His Father (John 14:12). Through the believer, the Holy Spirit wants to show the world that Jesus Christ is the same – Yesterday, Today and Forever. What He did in bible days, He will do today. The Holy Spirit wants to demonstrate through you the living Lord Jesus. He is alive and He is working in the earth today through you and me! Our prayer for you is that Christ be formed in you (Gal. 4:19), so that you can be all that He wants you to be! Remember: To you – at the new birth In you – which is an ongoing process through out your Christian walkThrough you – as He demonstrates His power to a lost and dying world.