THE SNAKE IN THE RIVER By Kathie Walters
Her email is: kathie@hom.net

I was sitting at my computer a couple of weeks ago when the anointing came upon me and I started to pray in the Spirit. This often happens to me, just before God speaks to me so I wondered that was happening. All of a sudden I had a vision of a beautiful river flowing. Then I noticed a snake in the river.

The snake was actually swimming against the flow of the river, but it didn't seem to mind that, in fact it appeared to move best that way.

I sat wondering what the snake represented when an E-mail popped up from a good friend of mine who is the editor of a popular Christian magazine. His E-mail was answering a question I had asked him earlier that day. As he has occasion to talk to many leaders and his job gives opportunity to see much of what God is doing, he was concerned because he had noticed among some of the leaders of various revivals, a spirit of pride. As his words appeared on my screen, the Holy Spirit said to me, "Pride-that is the snake in the river".

God sends revival in response to our need. We cry out to God because we are hungry and because, as we pray, we begin to see our need of God and His presence. We have a sense of our impotency. God in His grace responds to us as we humble ourselves. To acknowledge our need and declare our total dependency is revealing a heart of humility. "If my people which are called by my Name shall HUMBLE themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from the wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land." (2 Chron. 7:14) We are all familiar with those "revival" scriptures. If we are sincere we will always bring a response from a loving and compassionate heavenly Father.

When we humble ourselves before God and acknowledge our need of Him and our total dependency on His ability, He "Will do awesome things which we looked not for." ( Is.64:3.) We delight in His appearing in our midst and we revel in His joy and His Spirit s power to bring repentance.

One of the greatest challenges is to stay in that attitude. Human nature is such that it always wants to rise up; be the boss. It wants to receive the glory and the attention. Very soon after revivals begin, they often begin to lose their fire, and the seeds of death are already in it. Why is this? Most often it s because a spirit of Pride begins to creep into our soul. We unconsciously begin to think that this revival has something to do with us. David and I were ministering at a church in Florida and someone was healed of AIDS. When we were being told of this at a later date, and at the time of the meeting there had been many people praying for each other, I was curious as to who had prayed for that lady, wondering if it was one of the children. The response to my question was, "It was the Pastor." Another minister who was sitting there suddenly said, I think I prayed for her." The man who made the remark is not what I call a prideful kind of person, but I saw how prone we are to wanting that attention and acknowledgment.

How soon we can go from our position of mourning and knowing our need, to being pleased that God has selected us because of this, that or the other. After all, we prayed all that time, right? We were the ones that "paid the price." We obeyed God didn't we?" How subtle the enemy is to remind us of the things we have given up, in order to be available to God. Friend, God uses us because He loves us and He knows our need to be useful and needed. The Bible declares that He will not share His glory with another. But the devil sure wants us to try and share it. When we endeavor to get some of the glory, we enter into pride and God lifts His grace. For, "God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble." (Jas.4:6) There is nothing in the Bible that tells us that God will deliver us from pride, on the contrary the Word says, "Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God."

We are all, "Kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation..."(1 Pet.1:5). But after a while our soul, or human nature doesn't want to be that dependant...we get to thinking we can do our own "keeping" and unconsciously we drift into a spirit of pride.

Arthur Burt, a man of God who has been in the ministry for about 65 years was visiting at our house after a meeting. A young man, Jeremy, was asking Arthur some questions about the evangelist who had led him to the Lord in England. He had asked Arthur several times if he knew this evangelist and where he might contact him again. Arthur seemed very reluctant to answer, but Jeremy was insistent. "Yes, I do know where he is, and brother if you must know, he s in jail." Poor Jeremy was stunned. "What for?" he was completely shocked but his question was equally insistent. "Well if you must know brother, he is in jail for child pornography." Jeremy almost fell off his chair "I don t understand-he had such a powerful ministry." Arthur gave only one short reply which I have never forgotten. "Well brother, when a man gets into pride, God lifts His grace and he falls into the first hole he comes to." I never forgot that conversation...But, time and again I have seen that same scenario take place. The devil loves to lift a Christian up, but it is in order to let him fall. God loves us to keep ourselves low in order that He may lift us up.

Rebellion is a result of pride. Pride allows us to think we know better and make decisions of our own choosing. Deception is also a result of Pride...the spirit of pride begins to give us "special" revelation etc. or it uses people to flatter us and appeal to our self-importance. I was told this week of some Pastors in California who were about to enter a questionable society. They were warned about it but they were so flattered by the attention given them that they were unable to see that facts. They felt they had been selected or chosen by some other men and it appealed to human nature.

Although it often can be seen on us, God is not going to share the glory, lets take the snake out of the river and keep the river pure, it will surely increase if we do.

To find out more about the books by Kathie Walters and others, enter the address below into your browser.

http://www.goodnews.netministries.org/kathiebook.htm

Some of the books written by Kathie:

Columba-The Celtic Dove (Read about the awesome, supernatural ministry of this famous Celtic Saint.)

Celtic Flames (Exciting accounts of the lives and miracles of St. Patrick, Brendan, Brigid, Cuthbert, Columba etc.) Available June/July.

The Visitation ( Account of two supernatural visitations of heaven)

Living in the Supernatural (How to live and stay in the Spirit ALL the time)