IT'S NOT WORTH IT: PRIDE

Hello beloved brethren, I welcome you in the name of the Lord to the month of May. May the glory of God be revealed in you in this awesome month in Jesus name. I will be admonishing you on what I titled “PRIDE”

In Matthew 5:3, the Bible says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” To be poor in spirit means to rate yourself insignificant, it means to humble yourself enough to do what the word of God says, irrespective of your own view. This scripture clearly shows that humility is of the heart, so also pride is of the heart. Humility and pride are opposite in nature, hence one has a positive impact while the other negative, one of the light the other of darkness. As children of God, the Bible made us understand that we are the children of light and not of darkness (1st Thessalonians 5:5), therefore nothing of darkness should be tolerated in us.

Pride never takes a man up, neither does it allow him to remain in the place of power and authority, hence the Bible says in Matthew 23:12, “And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased (humbled); and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.” The Bible has a lot to say about pride, and none of it is good. Include Solomon in that category as he wrote, “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate,” – Proverbs 8:13. What I see in the ways of evil, perverted speech, and arrogance is that they are all centered in pride.

In Proverbs 16:18 the Bible says, “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” Most of us are familiar with the verse before us today. Yet, pride seems to be an issue everywhere we turn, even in Christendom. Grace should teach us just the opposite of pride. Understand, grace can simple be defined as getting what you don’t deserve. Knowing that, what do we have to be prideful about? Paul reminded the Christians at Corinth of the same thing when he said, “for who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why does thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? (1st Corinthians 4:7). As children of God we do not glory in ourselves. Our boast must always be in Christ.

So, why do we see such prideful attitude even among those that understand that grace is a free gift of a sovereign God? Simply, we have done quite the poor job of applying the knowledge that God has given. When we glory we are to glory in the Lord (1st Corinthians 1:31). We as believers are not working to earn our salvation. We serve the Lord out of a gracious heart because He has saved us from our sins. It is our honour and privilege to serve God who saved our soul through the sacrifice of His perfect Son.

The Bible is certainly full of examples of pride. Certainly, Satan was originally a beautiful cherub. He was created as such by God. He hadn’t fallen in the garden of Eden until he fell through pride (Ezekiel 28:11-19). Certainly because of his pride, he will ultimately be destroyed.

Jesus taught a parable of a rich man that took much pride in the work of his hands. The man looked at all he had done without considering it was the blessing of God. While looking over the abundance that God had given him, he concluded that he had made it all happen. He intended to tear down the barns on his farm and build bigger barns to hold all of the produce he thought he had produced. “But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?” (Luke 12:20). Certainly the main application of this parable is covetousness which is the younger brother of pride. However, we certainly can see the pride in the rich man’s heart just before judgment is pronounced.

Child of God, let us see the effect of pride in the Bible and flee from it. May we always see that pride brings destruction. Take note, even the truth of God’s word can be held up in a prideful manner and this is unacceptable. In this, we see Jesus came as a servant. This is our example today. Certainly, we see this pattern followed by the apostles and early churches. If we are to be faithful Christians, we must eject all pride from our attitude, and glory in Christ’s work of reconciliation alone.

May God bless you richly and cause the eyes of your understanding to be enlightened. See you next month.