When Pride Sets In

Could we ever be a graduate of the sin of pride? Since, we are still in the flesh, battling against pride would be a lifelong battle. We should not be lax about this battle everyday because everyday pride could just subtly creep into hearts. The moment that we think that have overcome pride is also the moment that pride has overcome us through that prideful thought. Pride is that deceitful because we could just take pride over everything even seemingly good things like ministry, spiritual disciplines, and other God-related activities.

There are times that we could be prideful because we are consistent in our spiritual disciplines. We try to credit ourselves and be puffed up with the good things we do for the Lord instead of always reminding ourselves that we could never have accomplished those things apart from the grace of God. There are times that we could be prideful because of the successes of the ministry that we are in. We try again to credit the success to ourselves instead of crying out with the psalmist, “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!” (Psalm 115:1) There are times that we are thankful for the gifts rather than the Giver of the gifts. We now try to put our identity on how well we’ve used our gifts rather than on who we are in Christ.

Comparison breeds pride. Pride does not just want us to be smart. It makes us want to be smarter than the next person. Pride does not just want us to be rich. It makes us want to be richer than the next person. If we are better than others then we take pride in it. We take pride in our intellect, wealth, and the like. Pride is never satisfied. It makes us want to be more and more and more so that at the end of the day, our little selves would be magnified. This is just so tiring because there will always be people who will be better than us. Bitterness might creep into our hearts because we can’t face the reality that someone is ahead of us. Discontentment with what we have will soon follow because we haven’t appreciated the things that God has graciously bestowed upon us. Pride produces lots of bad virtues along the way. Therefore, we have to kill pride every day through the power of the Holy Spirit.

So what do we do when pride sets in? The opposite of pride is humility and the best way to kill pride is to cultivate humility. There’s no humbler person than Christ so meditating on the virtue of humility in the person of Christ will help us in this struggle because we have our Lord Jesus as our example to follow. My go-to passage is always Philippians 2:3-11. It says: “ Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. ⁴ Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. ⁵ Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸ And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. ⁹ Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Let us meditate on this verse daily until the Holy Spirit writes it in our hearts. Let us also seek to apply this in our lives. Let us not do things out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Let us ask God to purify our self-centered desires every day and ask Him to change them to God-centered, God-glorifying desires. Let us cultivate the mind of Christ in our lives because we truly have it because we are united in Christ by faith. Let us behold the glory of Christ in His humility that even though He is equal with God, He rid himself of all His special rights to become a slave to obey all that God has in store for Him to do even the humiliating and excruciating death on the cross.

Another way to kill pride and cultivate humility is to be grateful knowing that all good things come from God. Let us thank God for all the good things that we have because all is grace and it all belongs to Him. All that we have and all that we are are to be used for His glory and not ours; for His kingdom not ours; for His purposes not ours. Let us thank God for our time, talent, and treasures. Let us thank God for the daily grace and blessings; crediting Him as the rightful source of these things and not attributing it to us.

We should also cultivate God-dependence and try to rid ourselves of self-reliance. Self-reliance is being disillusioned with weak, flawed, and contingent selves. We are ever-dependent creatures who are in constant need of the provision, sustenance, and enablement of our Creator. Let us constantly remind ourselves that we do the things we do because “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). We are merely branches in need of the constant nourishment of Christ our Vine. Indeed, apart from Him we can do nothing. Let us beg every day for His help because we desperately need it. We are always beggars in need of grace.

Let us also be consciously aware that we are not at the center of the universe. God is at the center. He holds all things together for His glory. He directs all happenings so that He alone would be glorified. At the center of pride is a heart that wants to grab the glory that is due to God. God is a God-centered God. Let us rid our minds of all our man-centered ideologies and attitudes lest He opposes us and humbles us down.

“For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.” (Isa. 48:11) Pride results to self-glory and self-glory corrupts the soul because our souls are made to delight in the glory of Someone greater.