Peter had the greatest zeal out of any of the disciples. Lesson number one – the greatest zeal does not protect you from pride. ‘Lord, though everyone denies you, I never will.’ Self-confidence unfortunately can come with great zeal. We have to watch out for pride in the form of self-confidence. Self-confidence is very weak. Self-confidence is not necessarily loyal. Self-confidence is short on prayer. Self-confidence underestimates the enemy and the task, underestimates the devil.
Are you on social media? Be careful, be so careful. Social media is a tool of Satan, used by Satan to boost pride. It is a place of pride. If you use it for messaging, for any purpose, be so careful how you do. You look at these sites, look at what people are doing. Self-advertisement, drawing attention to self. I am so special, everybody must know my opinion about everything, everybody must know what I like and dislike. It is promoting self – self-advertisement, self-attention. Look at the selfies on social media. There are people who grow to love the look of themselves and think everybody else should love it too. If you use it, be careful. Is this modest? Is this conducive to humility? Is this for me? Is this about me? Is this trivialising me? Is Satan making a fool of me? Am I catching the disease that is rampant throughout this platform? Be so careful. Humility is the key to blessing, is the key to having strength from the Lord.
Somebody asked: Is love for souls the greatest qualification to be a soul-winner? And the answer here is no, not love for souls. Yes, we love souls in the sense that we are sympathetic to them. We deeply sympathise with lost souls, but the first pre-requisite for being used by Christ is that we love him, love him first. That is the key to humility, it is the key to loyalty, it is the key to everything.