One sin that I am convinced almost every human on the planet deals with to some degree or another is the sin of pride. It may exhibit itself in different ways but the root is there just the same. Years ago, I thought of pride as arrogance, and I did not think that described me, so it was easy to feel pretty good about myself. It wasn’t until I read Irresistible to God that I was reminded just how much God hates pride and exactly how one can begin to see the proud areas of his or her life in order to change into the humble son or daughter that God requires.
First Peter 5:5 tells us that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. I don’t know about you but the thought of God resisting me makes me tremble. I can’t imagine kneeling before His throne to make my petition known just to see Him turn His face and refuse to even look at me. That’s at best. Resisting also means turning against. That is even more scary! I need God on my side so I must endeavor to become humble.
In Proverbs 6, you will find a list of things God hates. Pride is the first thing in that list, along with “hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked imaginations,” and several other things. If God hates it that badly, I want nothing to do with it.
Unfortunately, after 40+ years, it is not easy to just be humble and get rid of all pride. I have a lot of habits and patterns that are a part of me, which I must rely on God to help uncover bit by bit. As I see my pride flare up, I do have the responsibility to kill it though. I do not want that to define my life.
If you have never considered pride as a bad thing, I encourage you to do a study and see what else God has to say about it. My prayer tonight is:
Change my heart, O God
Make it ever true
Change my heart, O God
May I be like You
Christ Alone Wyoming 
True genuine humility is not sought after by many, nor is the necessity of it expounded upon from the pulpit. I find this brief writing very helpful –
HOW HUMILITY IS OBTAINED
“Humility is not obtained by reading texts, and turning over parallel passages which speak of it, but by having something in ourselves, discovered to us in a spiritual way, to be humble for. Thus a man who stands as a forsaken stump of what he was, and has the devil to harass him all the summer, and his own vile heart to plague him all the winter, has something in himself to make him humble. Humility is forced, beaten, driven into him; he is made humble, whether he will or not, and is compelled by sheer necessity to take the lowest room.
The great secret of vital godliness is to be NOTHING, that Christ may be all in all. Every stripping, sifting, and emptying; every trial, exercise and temptation that the soul passes through, has but one object-to beat out of man’s heart that cursed spirit of independence which the devil breathed into him when he said, “Ye shall be as gods”. A MAN MUST WELL NIGH BE BLED TO DEATH BEFORE THIS VENOM CAN BE DRAINED OUT OF HIS VEINS. To cut down a giant into a babe a span long; to put a hunch-backed camel into a hydraulic press, and squeeze it into sufficient dimensions to pass through a needle’s eye-this is the process needful to be undergone before a man can bring forth fruit unto God. Well might Nicodemus marvel how a man could enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born; and the wonder how a grown-up man becomes a helpless babe is as great a mystery to most now.
The Christian thus learns that if he stands, God must hold him up; if he knows anything aright, God must teach him; if he walks in the way to heaven, God must first put, and afterwards keep him in it; if he has anything, God must give it to him; and that if he does anything, God must work it in him. He now “through the law”-that is, through his experience of its killing sentence-”is become dead to the law, that he may live unto God”. He can no longer take a killing letter for a living rule, but is deeply conscious that it is only by being “married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that he can bring forth fruit unto God” Ro 7:4. Thus by the presence of God going with him, he becomes separated “from all the people that are upon the face of the earth” Ex 33:16.
[Quoted from J.C. Philpot]
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That is so very true. It doesn’t take much to get the human heart to fill with pride but, when everything is ripped out from under us and we realize that, without Him, we have nothing, then we begin to see how empty we really are, and that is when He can fill those empty spots, where once pride resided, with more of Himself.
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Very true, Sis. Sony. Thanks again for your writing here at DefCon.
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Thank you Sony (and Lyn ). This made me think of Peter who should have been quite humble after denying the Lord and being lovingly restored after the resurrection. Yet some years later Paul has to go and rebuke him to his face for his prideful behavior. Thankfully all who are truly born again know that God has taught us and that he will keep us in our walk by way of various encouragements, rebukes (sometimes directly through his word or Holy Spirit and sometimes through others), and even chastisements.
In Christ -Jim
“The Christian thus learns that if he stands, God must hold him up; if he knows anything aright, God must teach him; if he walks in the way to heaven, God must first put, and afterwards keep him in it; if he has anything, God must give it to him; and that if he does anything, God must work it in him.”
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