Hi, Pastor John;
I had this dream years ago, but I have been thinking about it a lot this week.
In my dream, a sister in the Lord that is no longer with us, looked at me smiling and said, “You have pretty teeth”. I thought this was odd. Maybe, saying a nice smile would be more appropriate. The next scene, I was looking at my smile and teeth in a mirror, touched the front tooth and it fell out in my hand. I was embarrassed with how my, “smile” looked now; I would compensate my smile by not smiling as wide to show my teeth . . .kind of like a kid that first gets braces.
I looked into the mirror again. Each tooth had a word written on it. The words written on each tooth were words of the flesh ; strife, anger, etc.; there are more than just listed in the bible. It could even be, looking good on the outside or pretending to be good. I heard the Spirit’s voice, “If you remove this tooth, the rest will come out easier”. When I looked at the mirror to see the tooth that the Spirit pointed out to me, the word, “Pride” was written on it. I didn’t like the feeling that pride was associated with anything on me. I touched the tooth and it was loose, but it moved. I began to work and work on it, pushing and pulling form side-to-side and up-and-down, that I finally had the bloody tooth with pride written on it in my hand. When I look into the mirror and saw my bloody shin and mouth, the other teeth were falling out all by themselves.
When I saw in the mirror that I had no teeth left in my mouth, I knew that all of the works in my flesh were gone. When I smiled, there wasn’t a tooth in my head. At that time, the embarrassment of not having one of my teeth tuned to joy of having no teeth.
I know, if we let God help us remove the pride in our hearts, He will take the bite out of us. It may not look as pretty to others that we don’t have teeth, but God loves this kind of smile.
Billy M.
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Well, brother Billy, one thing is for sure. Without teeth, we can’t “bite and devour one another.” And that is a good thing!
Seriously, Jesus said to be harmless as a dove, and once pride is removed, all the weapons of the flesh which strife uses will crumble. Thank God for that! “Strife comes through pride,” Solomon said.
And Ezekiel said that pride was Satan’s first sin:
Ezekiel 28:15,17 KJV
[15] Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. [17a] Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty….
Humility is the way into eternal life.
Pastor John