The Pride Deception, Part 1

I’m not too particularly thrilled to admit that I’m prideful. As a matter of fact, I wasn't even aware that I was! Not until this past Sunday that is…..
We had a guest pastor at church on Sunday that spoke of our friend and foe, those being “humility” and “pride”, respectively. God forbid that I should quote his sermon verbatim, but I will attempt to translate it my own way. It doesn’t take a bible scholar to know that being humble is God’s way and prideful is satan’s way. However, upon hearing the sermon, I began to realize just how guilty I was of fostering pride within my own heart.

{For this post, I simply want to introduce what pride is and later, I will share with you how pride is destructive.}

You see, when you become bitter, angry, resentful, and disgusted, it is because pride has manifested. Offense is the prerequisite to an ungodly action or reaction. When you’re offended, naturally you say within yourself; “You’ve hurt me so now I’m going to hurt you back!” Pride is evidenced in many variations that are disguised as vindication, and supports the infamous folklore: An eye for an eye. However, unbeknownst to many, God hates pride because it is considered evil and a sin as spoken of by David in Psalm 8:13; “All who fear the LORD will hate evil. That is why I hate pride, arrogance, corruption, and perverted speech.” David includes pride as being one of those evil things.

Here’s why pride is evil:

It causes us to turn away from God when we’re supposed to turn to Him
It leads to disobedience and rebellion
It causes us to mistreat other people
It defiles us! (Mark 7: 20-23)

Manifestations of pride:

Can’t admit when wrong
Selfishness
Disrespect of and no submission to authority
Criticism and looking down on others
Self-exhortation
Too busy or too lazy to help others

The list goes on and on. Even if you possess only one of the aforementioned characteristics, you are still deemed prideful. Stay tuned because I’m going to share with you how to recognize pride, how it affects your Christian walk, and why God doesn’t think it’s cool.