Pride

It is so easy to become proud. I am refering to the self glorifying kind that stands in oppostion to the glory of God. That sin which makes it so easy to lie, steal, cheat, or do whatever we have to do to make ourselves look good. OK, so maybe you haven't stolen or cheated; you may have not lied. You are still guilty, we all are.

As children of Adam we are all guilty of this sin. It manifests itself in many ways, and it is very hard to detect it in yourself. It is decietful like all other sins. It tends to blind you and make you feel impervious to anything. Oh, that God would grant humility. To help all Christians to stay humble. We are proud people. What I mean is, we love the praise of man. It feels so good to hear people make much of us doesn't it? We tend to love it when someone notices something about us or give us a great complement. It is so true, we love to see ourselves in the spotlight. Pastor John Piper has helped me to understand so much from the Scriptures on this topic. I thank God for that. He pointed out one time that the opposite of pride is not humility-the opposite of pride is FAITH. When we are given to a proud spirit it is because we have no room in our hearts for Christ. We need to pray for humility and broken hearted passion for His glory and our dissapearance. I think of John the Baptist's statement in the book of John, "I must decrease, he must increase" (my paraphrase).

Only when we die to ourselves and walk in humble dependence upon Him can we hope to be cured of the wickedness of a prideful heart. The proud heart screams, "I dont' need you Christ." The proud heart will never turn to Jesus. It is self sufficiant, self sustaining, and unwilling to bend for anything or anyone.

In fact as I say that it is easy to become proud, I imply that I know something about it. To know something about pride, however, is not prideful. Scripture gives us many insights into pride. Condsider these:

• Pride keeps a man from seeking after God (Ps. 10:4)
• The proud heart speeks arogantly against the righteous (Ps. 31:18)
• It is a charactoristic trait of the wicked (Ps. 73:6)
• Wisdom hates it (Prov. 8:13)
• Pride brings disgrace (Prov. 11:2)
• Pride breeds quarells (Prov. 13:10)
• Pride comes before destruction (Prov. 16:18)
• God humbles the proud (Isa. 2:11)

From this small collection of verses (and there are many more) we have enough to loathe this sin. May God grant holiness and faith to battle this sin. Only as we have more of Christ will we become less and in becoming less- we walk in the Truth.

I WANT LESS OF ME AND MORE OF YOU!