Dealing with Pride in Our Lives

Proverbs 16:18 The Message (MSG)

¹⁸ First pride, then the crash—the bigger the ego, the harder the fall.

In my life I have experienced good and bad times. I have had friends who were very close to me when they had nothing but when their status changed, they completely forgot me. As men we have an issue with pride. We are always checking on how we are being perceived with respect to others. We keep track of our statistics, standing and status. We are hypersensitive to evidence that we are being demeaned. Because we are so concerned about our standing and status, we are constantly tempted to inflate ourselves in order to attain a higher standing and thus higher status.

For the sake of our pride, we may try to attain a higher status in pumping ourselves up with boasting; we deflate others by putting them down. Humility, on the other hand, is having a right view of ourselves that depends on faith rather than statistics, standing and status.

Pride is the secret killer of all failed relationships. God is concerned about the relationships we have with others. God teaches us that we cannot hate others and love Him. This means that our relationships say something about our relationships with Him. When we are rightly related to God, our other relationships are blessed and prosper. When we are wrongly related to God our other relationships suffer and cause pain and heartache.

To deal with pride we must learn that:

· Pride does not want to be under authority.

· Pride quickly forgets others who help them. In fact pride conveniently forgets all those who go to great efforts to help the person. Pride has a very short memory.

· Pride is a crowd pleaser because pride worries about what others say about them. It does not care about what God thinks, only what is good for the person.

· Pride refuses to accept responsibility. It’s always someone else’s fault. Someone else compelled him. Someone else made him. Pride refuses to be wrong.

· Pride uses and abuses people. That’s the nature of pride. People are only a means to an end. They are a commodity, something to be used to further their desires.

· Pride is blind to itself. Obadiah 1:3; “The pride of your heart has deceived you.” You know the real problem with pride is that pride refuses to see its own ugly head. Pride refuses to see pride. Pride is blind to its own ugly ways. Pride will refuse to believe it should repent or needs to repent.

To combat pride:

· Be grateful for what you have and refuse to complain or murmur. Be filled with thankfulness.

· Be a person of praise and worship to God. Worship combats pride because worship reminds us of who God is.

· Be quick to say “I’m sorry” and be willing to take the blame even when you may not think you deserve it.

· Be open to correction; easily entreated; able to listen to others, consider their sides.:

· Always be ready to make the choice that is good for the relationship and good for the kingdom of God rather than good for your own flesh.

· Maintain a healthy fear of the Lord by maintaining a life in the Word of God and in prayer. The two key elements to our spiritual health is the Word of God and prayer. Neglect them and you lose the fear of the Lord. Lose the fear of the Lord and pride begins to rise up again.

Finally

To the person filled with pride his actions are totally justified, totally right, totally acceptable and even beyond that pride sees itself as in a higher, more superior, and more spiritual place than others.

But Humility remembers everyone who has helped them and remembers to acknowledge them and thank them. Humility is grateful and remembers, but pride quickly forgets. Humility believes people are precious and valuable and should be handled with care. Humility is motivated by love; pride by selfishness.

When our heart is set to obey God with a heart of humility, time does not change anything. But when our heart is moved by pride we quickly forget because we are set to do what we want to do. God is looking for hearts that are set on Him. He is looking for hearts that are pleased to honor His ways, not ours.

Pride does not add value to your life. It invites hatred from others and causes people to distant themselves from the proud person.