by Elder Mike Chon
From the fall in the garden to today, there is one characteristic that can sum up the condition of the fallen world: pride.
From the world’s perspective, pride is looked upon as virtuous. The world teaches us that you must put yourself first before anyone else. It worships self-exaltation, self-esteem, self-satisfaction, and self-centeredness. The world practices the religion of self-worship. Of course we shouldn’t be surprised by this since the world continues to embrace what Scripture calls sin and redefine it as virtuous. They say what is good is bad, and what is bad is good.
Before we begin to point our finger at the world in disgust however, we need to be aware that we are not immune to the effects of pride in our heart. What makes pride so dangerous is that is blinds us to the reality of how sinful we really are. Pride leads us to rebel against the one true and holy God. Pride seeks to dethrone God as the absolute sovereign Lord of this world. It is no wonder that men left to their pride and self-love will never seek after God and follow Him. There are many dangers to pride, but I’d like to focus on three that can arise in a heart that allows pride to rule.
- Spiritual Blindness. While Scripture calls us to examine ourselves (2 Cor. 13:5), we can become blind to our own sin. This happens often when we are in a conflict or a disagreement. We become so focused on what the other person has done or said that we become blind to our own sinful heart and attitudes. Our response to conflict reveals to what extent pride has gripped our hearts. When someone has wronged us, we typically don’t respond with grief over the sin, but instead we respond sinfully because we can’t believe this person would do or say this to ME! Even though we respond with anger, hatred, gossip, and/or slander in retaliation, we are often so blinded by our own pride that we refuse to recognize our sin in the conflict. And at times we are so offended by another person that we refuse to extend forgiveness; how blind do you have to be to not see the cross of Christ in your life?
- Separation From Others. Pride also causes us to put people into categories or ranks. We begin to look at others and rank them in terms of their “spirituality” or “gifts.” We see ourselves as better than others and try to work our way into the company of those that we perceive to be better than us. We begin to put imaginary titles or initials after our own name, believing that somehow we are greater than someone else. And as we saw in #1, this can happen without knowing it since pride can blind us to our own sin. This manifestation of pride can be especially deadly for those of us that are older or have been believers for a longer time. We have to remember that all of us are equal in the kingdom of God. No one has greater status or a greater salvation than the person next to us. We have all been saved by grace and we are all being sanctified by grace.
- Self-Absorption. Pride causes our heart to turn away from serving others to serving ourselves. We begin to even do things that externally appear to be for others but ultimately are for self-exaltation and recognition. This is what I like to call the “I’ll give a gift so that I can receive one later” syndrome. We outwardly follow what God has called us to do, but it is for the glory of self and not the glory God. We begin to subvert what God meant for His own glory, and desire and seek it for our glory.
However, the single greatest reason that pride is so dangerous is that it is not something that is easily recognized or admitted to by the believer. Who wants to admit that they are prideful? Our minds and hearts have believed the lies of this world and have not taken seriously the danger of pride in our lives.
In the next article I will examine how we can battle pride in our lives.