Pride
Most people would probably not consider me to be a prideful person. At least, when I mentioned I was reading a book called “Humility” by CJ Mahaney, her response was “Sarah! I never thought that was something you struggled with!” The reason she thought that is because often times we only associate pride with thinking of yourself as higher than others, and that is what it is. But often times we forget about the sins that are rooted in pride. Vanity, selfishness, gossip, self-righteousness anger, jealousy, envy, and slander are rooted in pride. Pride was the first sin and the root of all sins. Or at least, a lot of them.
So how to do we conquer pride? It seems to be the hardest sin to defeat. As I have been reading CJ Mahaney’s book I have realized a few things.
First, I don’t really care for his writing style but he does a good job of defining pride. “Pride is when sinful human beings aspire to the status and position of God and refuse to acknowlede their dependence upon HIm.” When we slandor or gossip about another person, not only are we saying, I am better than you, we are also saying, I understand this situation and can judge this person in the same way God does. We are contending for His supremacy as Mahaney puts it. So one way to conquer pride is to realize that in being prideful we are putting ourselves on an equal level with God. This may help scare us away.
Second, to become less prideful, we should become a slave to everyone. Be willing to do the dirty work. Don’t complain. Become the servant of all. That is what God calls us to be and in doing so, it puts us in our rightful place, a place of humility.
The third chapter, however, I think hits it right on. While all these previous things are good. They are not foundational in conquering the sin of pride. If we, as Christians, want to conquer any sin, we have to first make our foundation Christ. We have to grow closer to Him. The closer we grow to him, the more like Him we become, and the more like Him we become, the less and less we will desire to sin.
We have to spend time with Christ every day…He should be at the back of our minds every second. The more we grow closer to Him, the more we become dependent on Him. We begin to realize how much we need Him. We begin to desire to be with Him continually. When we realize our unceasing need for Christ, there is no longer any room for pride. Someone who is prideful cannot be dependent on someone else, they are too good for that. So while I don’t really have many practical tips for overcoming pride, I do say this. Follow Christ…He is the only one who can help you overcome giving in to temptations.
I like how you say, “I don’t really care for his writing style” right before talking about slander, gossip. |: )
C.J. Mahaney was recommended to Kris and I by Todd Barnett. Since attending CBU you seem to be reading a lot of good books, I think it would be helpful to me and probably others if you could post a list of books you have read recommend (with a concise review and the topics and categories that it covers).
Pride is an area I haven’t really dealt with yet. I think I /think/ that I’ve dealt with it, but it was easier to focus on making people think I’m humble while secretly retaining the pride and even using this skill of putting on a show of humility to further drive my pride. What a mess!
A lot of pride is centered around justification. We find excuses as to why we behave in a certain way such as, “I had a right to that,” or “he was unfair to me, so therefore, I need to repay the favor.” We try to twist sin around by blaming someone else, or comparing ourselves to someone else who may be a “worse sinner than us.” In fact, we spend so much time justifying everything, when it would take less time just to repent before the Lord! But we don’t like to admit it when we make mistakes, because we look weak in front of other people. But what we don’t realize is that we eventually will fall on our face from too much pride, and it’s only when we let go and admit our weaknesses, that God is able to take us by the hand and pull us back up again.