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Pride affects us in many ways and it isn’t always noticeable. God can help reveal and remove the pride in us. It may be painful to see, but God in His grace and goodness is working in us to produce and mold us in Christlikeness. He knows we can only draw closer and walk deeper in Him when we remove the obstacle of pride.
Lies vs. Honesty
Pride and humility are at opposite ends of the spectrum. They could not be more different and we have the choice every day. Pride lies to us. In humility we see the honest truth in all things. But we must choose which we will follow and believe. Pride leads to dissatisfaction and disappointment. Humility leads to fulfillment and satisfaction.
Pride Contrasted With Humility
Pride and humility see life differently.
Pride says, “I am right.”
Humility says, “I want to know what is right.”
Pride says, “I don’t need help.”
Humility says, “God, I need You.”
Pride says, “Look what I have done.”
Humility says, “Look what God has done.”
Pride says, “They need to change.”
Humility says, “Lord, change me.”
This doesn’t mean humility never recognizes another person’s wrongdoing.
Jesus did not ignore sin. The Bible does not tell us to call evil good. It urges us to see, recognize and expose sin for what it is and to love and forgive as we live in this fallen world. To gently correct, recognizing we are forgiven sinners by Christ’s sacrifice.
Jesus pointed out sin, but at the same time called sinners to repent and believe in Him so they could receive forgiveness and hope in Him. God does the same for us through His Spirit. He convicts us and draws us closer when we repent. He calls out to and draws all people the same. The choice is ours. Will we listen to Him or ignore Him.
Humility begins by allowing God to work in our own hearts. It is easy to point a finger. It is much harder to open our hearts to God’s correction.
Jesus asked:
Matthew 7:3
Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to see the beam of wood in your own?
Jesus wasn’t telling us that we should never recognize problems. He was teaching us to look honestly at ourselves first.
Pride Will Always Lead to Disaster
Scripture repeatedly warns us about pride because pride eventually causes us to stumble. It will trip us up every time.
We may think we are strong enough. Wise enough. Careful enough. Independent enough.
But pride can cause us to walk directly toward the very thing we believe we can avoid. It is a slippery slope.
Proverbs 16:18
Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Pride doesn’t always produce an immediate disaster. It takes time. It works slowly. Only time will tell what damage it will cause.
It damages relationships. It hurts those around us. It keeps us from apologizing. From asking for help. From admitting that we were wrong. It prevents reconciliation. Makes correction difficult. And hardens our hearts.
It destroys the love inside us. It takes our joy. It steals happiness. It may seem to produce these things instead, but in reality we are not content or satisfied and therefore we really loose these things. Selfish ambition replaces our peace and purpose in our hearts as pride grows.
And little by little, pride moves us farther away from the humility God desires.
A stumble often begins long before the actual fall. That is why we need to deal with pride while it is still small. As soon as we recognize it, we need to deal with it.
Ask God to reveal it before it grows. Ask Him to help us rid it from ourselves. Only with God’s help we can recognize and remove it in our hearts.
We need to be willing to listen before our hearts become hardened. Willing to hear God and do what He tells us in His Word and through His Spirit.
The Remedy
God is the only way. Humbly walking with our savior each day relying on Him. He can help us avoid the pitfalls of pride. Through His guidance and strength we can learn His ways as opposed to the world’s ways and our fallen nature. When we humble ourselves and let God work we will find peace and joy in Him.
Be Humble in Everything
Humility is the answer to pride. But even here, we need to understand something important. We cannot simply decide we are going to become humble.
In our strength we can’t do this.
We need God’s help. It’s not part of our human nature. It is not easy to be humble on our own. This itself can lead to pride. God is the only way to true humility.
It’s also not just an outward behavior. It is a change in the heart. It is learning to see ourselves in the proper place before God.
We are His creation. He is our Creator. We are dependent on Him. He is our source.
We have gifts because He gave them to us. We have strength because He sustains us. We have wisdom because He teaches us. And we can do what He calls us to do because He enables us.
Philippians 4:13
I am able to do all things through the one who strengthens me.
That doesn’t make us weak. It makes us properly dependent. There is tremendous freedom in realizing that we don’t have to be everything.
We don’t have to know everything. We don’t have to control everything. We don’t have to prove ourselves. We can simply follow God and trust Him to provide what we need.
Submit to God Always
Humility means submission. That word can be uncomfortable because we naturally want to be in control.
We want our way. We want our timing. We want our plans. We want our answers. But following God means surrendering our will to His.
James 4:10
Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you.
Submission is not defeat as it may seem. Instead it is trust. Trusting God. Believing and having faith in God’s way. It is accepting and acknowledging that God’s way is better than ours.
Sometimes we may not understand His way. His timing may seem slow. We may wonder why He allows something to happen.
But humility doesn’t require us to understand everything before we trust Him. It simply says, “God, I trust You.”
Humbly Let God’s Spirit Guide Us
We also need the Holy Spirit. We cannot successfully walk with God by relying only on our own wisdom.
We can be misled by our emotions, assumptions, and our pride. Even our own thoughts and experiences influencing our decisions can lead us at times in the wrong direction.
God’s Spirit leads us toward truth. God sent His Spirit to guide us into all truth and the more we walk with God, the more we learn to recognize His correction. The more we recognize His voice over ourselves, the closer we will walk with Him and experience His goodness and wisdom in all things.
At times God’s Spirit will quietly remind us, “You need to apologize.”, “You need to stop assuming.”, “You need to forgive.”, “You need to listen.”, “You need to let this go.”
And sometimes the hardest words we hear from God are the ones that expose something inside us that we would rather keep hidden.
But God’s correction is loving.
Revelation 3:19
All those I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent!
God corrects us because He loves us. He doesn’t expose our pride to push us away. He exposes it so that we can become more like Christ.
Abide in God Every Day
Humility isn’t something we practice once and then have permanently mastered.
We need God every day.
Every conversation. Every decision. Every relationship. Every situation and circumstance. Every success. Every failure. Every opportunity. Every disappointment.
We need Him. Always. Forever.
Jesus said:
John 15:4
Remain in me, and I will remain in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me.
To abide means to remain. To stay. To continue. We need to remain connected to Christ.
When we abide in Him, we don’t have to manufacture the fruit of the Spirit through our own strength. God works in us.
The closer we walk with Him, the more He teaches us to recognize pride. The more we know His Word, the more we recognize lies. The more we listen to His Spirit, the more quickly we can recognize when our thoughts are leading us in the wrong direction. And the more we understand God’s grace, the less we need to prove ourselves.
Conclusion
Pride can be difficult to recognize because pride doesn’t always look like what we expect.
Sometimes pride looks like being offended, refusing to apologize, assuming we know another person’s motives, creating a story in our minds and believing it is true, being quick to defend ourselves without listening or consideration, anger we refuse to surrender, and believing our abilities are entirely our own.
Pride can blind us. It can make us stumble. It can create distance between us and other people. Most importantly, it interferes with our relationship with God.
But there is a better way.
Humility.
Humility doesn’t mean thinking poorly of ourselves. It means thinking truthfully.
It means recognizing who God is and who we are. It means acknowledging that every good gift comes from Him. It means being willing to say, “I was wrong.” It means being willing to listen. It means asking instead of assuming. It means forgiving instead of holding onto bitterness. It means surrendering instead of demanding our own way.
And it means trusting God enough to let Him lead us.
We don’t have to be afraid of seeing pride in ourselves. When God reveals something that needs to change, He is giving us an opportunity to grow.
We can bring it to Him. We can confess it. We can surrender it. We can ask Him to change our hearts. We can ask Him for the strength to respond differently next time.
God is patient with us. He knows our weaknesses. He knows our failures. He knows the things we try to hide.
And still, He calls us closer.
James 4:8
Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and make your hearts pure, you double-minded.
So let us ask God to help us see ourselves honestly.
Ask God the following things:
When we are tempted to defend ourselves – ask God for help listening.
When we are tempted to assume – ask God for help seeing the truth.
When we are tempted to hold onto anger – ask God for help to forgive.
When we are tempted to take pride in our abilities – ask God to remind us where those abilities came from.
When we are tempted to depend upon ourselves – ask God to remind us that we need Him.
And when we stumble – ask God to help us get back up and keep walking with Him.
Pride says we can do it ourselves.
Humility says, “God, I need You.”
And that is where we need to be.
Start with God, right now. Ask Him for His help.
Keep walking with Him. Depending on Him. Listening to Him. Abiding in Him. And trusting Him every day.
