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Do not be proud

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“Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.’"

 (Matthew 7:15)

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Any place there is some person who likes to stand out from others.

They want to make them sin by telling people how good their job is or how nice a camera theirs is than others. Always showing off like they have the best things.

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I think you students are also like this sometimes.

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Some friends are proud of their family being rich.

“Hey my family`s house is really big and we also have three cars!”

And act as if he or she`s a big businessman.

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And some friends are proud that they are good at their studies.

“Hey! I got all 100% scores on this test~ Can you guys do that?”

And think, as if they’re the best in the world.

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But today`s Bible verse tells us not to stand out with what you have.

“As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.”

Why do you think, the Bible told us not to standout?

Let`s think together about this.

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There was a man doing business in a small town.

He was thinking of a way to earn a lot of money alone.

And finally he came up with a great plan.

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So he gathered the people in the town and said:

“Dear townspeople, today I have come up with a great plan.”

The people in the town were curious about his plan.

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”I`m going to leave this town and to sell all of my things to a bigger city.

I will stay there for 1 year and earn a lot of money and then come back to this town.”

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This person boasted and told about his plan to whoever he met in the town.

The people in the town were envious about him.

“That person is amazing! He definitely must have great talent for business!”

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So this man left the town with many things to sell to earn much money.

His family and the townspeople prayed and blessed him to be successful

in his trip.

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But not so long after that; very sad news arrived at the town.

And this sad news was about the person who had left the town to earn money had died during the trip. He spoke about his great plan to everyone he knew but now that effort have been just a waste of time because he was dead now.

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The Apostle Jacob’s sermon to the people who liked to standout was this:

“You people can never know the future. And your life is like a fog that will fade away soon in the morning.”

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Even if we make up a great plan, dream about how to achieve it, and be proud of it, our life is owned by our LORD. If our LORD doesn’t approve for us to live a single second longer, we will die. So telling his goal and dreams to others and being proud of it is a stupid thing.

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Then how should we talk to others?

 Apostle Jacob teaches us like this:

“Even if I make a wonderful plan and dream to do the one who achieve those goal is not me but it`s our LORD. So if he approves, I can do this thing or that thing.”

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Those words are telling us to be humble in front of God.

If our God doesn`t allow us to live a single second longer we will die that instant.

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Even if you tell others that you’re rich today, if our God doesn`t like those words you will be poor the next year.

There are some people who like their health and are proud of it, but even health is owned by God.

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So we, the children of Jesus Christ, should always be humble and be thankful about what we have now and do good things with what we are allowed.

This year also, we should be wise to know what we have from God is what He allows for us. And our God will allow even better things to us when God sees our humbleness.