Pride is a terrible attribute for us to have. Pride causes us to ignore God, and it keeps people from acknowledging that they are sinners that need to be saved.

Jesus was willing to follow the plan of God. Although He had committed no sin and although His crucifixion would be the greatest miscarriage of justice of all times, Jesus was willing to accept crucifixion because His death on the Cross would fulfill the plan of God to save the souls of all of those that believe in Him.

Although Jesus came to the Jews and as a Jew, Jesus did not come for just the Jews. God sent Jesus because He so loved us that He does not want us to perish, as the result of our being judged on our own merits would be that we would be condemned to hell. Jesus did not come to establish or participate in a temporary earthly kingdom, but to establish an everlasting heavenly kingdom by preparing a place in which we sinners can cleanse ourselves and prepare to come into contact with a Holy God.

The devil can certainly devise a temptation that we lack the strength to overcome, so we must simply avoid being available when temptation comes. We may find ourselves disobeying God if we overestimate our strength and fail to heed the admonition of God to avoid temptation rather than to try to resist it.

Submission and love is the crux of Christianity, and only as we show that love to one another in our most intimate relationships can others see our Christian testimony. If we show our Christian “love” only to those with whom our relationship is peripheral, we have not really passed the test, because the real test is our ability to sacrifice ourselves for one another, as Jesus sacrificed Himself for us.

Jesus Christ gave Himself sacrificially, meaning that He put His personal feelings aside and did that which was necessary so that He could accomplish that which God gave Him to do, regardless of the pain that it caused Him. And He is our example.

The combination of the strength and the understanding of an honorable man and the gentle and quiet spirit of a beautiful, chaste woman make for a combination that the Lord loves and blesses in family situations. And men that know how to treat women want strong, understanding husbands for their daughters.

The real test for any leader that God chooses to lead his people is whether or not the leader remembers that the real leader is God; the actual job of any Christian leader is simply to transmit the Word of God to the people.