“Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility.” (Proverbs 18:12)
God hates pride. So, we must be aware of it as it props itself up in us. When we go to the cross daily, remembering God’s great mercy on us, pride will not have any hold on us. Everything that we are, everything we have, all that we have accomplished and anything good in us is because of the Father’s mercy for us. When we know this, we will have no part of pride. “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.” (Proverbs 8:13) It’s giving the credit, the glory and praise to ourselves instead of God. That is pride and arrogancy.
Pride first appeared in Lucifer. He was the prince of Tyre when pride came upon him. He believed it and deceived himself into thinking that he was greater than God. How many of us think the same way? We don’t think so, but we think we’re being humble and say with our actions that we take without consulting God, “I have this. Don’t bother.” We don’t think it’s pride, but it is. It’s false humility to think that we don’t want to bother the Lord with the tiny things when in fact, He delights that we look and depend on Him even in the little things.
Lucifer thought all his glory came from himself, but it was God Who’d created him and given him wisdom and perfect beauty. (Ezekiel 28:12) He was perfect until iniquity was found in him. (Ezekiel 28:13-15) And destruction came to him. (Ezekiel 28:16-19) There is another proverb that warns us about pride. “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18)
Nebuchadnezzar had a similar experience. Daniel warns Belshazzar, Nebuchadnezzar’s son of pride by reminding him what happened to his father when he had pride. “But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him: And he was driven from the sons of men; and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses: they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven; till he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that He appointeth over it whomsoever He will.” (Daniel 5:20-21) Belshazzar had used the holy vessels of the temple from Jerusalem as vessels to drink to his partying friends when a hand appeared and wrote on the wall. Daniel interprets what the hand wrote. “And this is the writing that was written, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it. TEKEL; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. PERES; Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.” (Daniel 5:25-28) And that night, Belshazzar was slain and Darius the Median took the kingdom. (Daniel 5:30, 31)
There is also the case of Herod. “And upon a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne, and made an oration unto them. And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man. And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost.” (Acts 12:21-23)
Through these examples, we see how serious pride can be. We must do whatever possible to avoid pride. The Word of God encourages us to keep a humble heart. That is not possible without the knowledge that it’s all about God and not us. We must remember that without God’s provision of salvation, we were already condemned. “He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:18) Before we believed on Jesus, we were condemned already. It was God’s mercy that He poured on us, opened our eyes, gave us understanding of the Gospel and gave us the gift of sonship through the work of Jesus on the cross that we can stand before Him clothed in righteousness. It was nothing we did. It was nothing we deserved.
How can we avoid pride? Paul tells the Colossians, to put on and in the original Greek, sink into the garment of humility, of inward affection and mercy, usefulness, moral excellence in character or demeanor, gentleness, goodness and kindness. What are our thoughts about ourselves? Paul encourages us to have a modest and humble mind that is full of humility and lowliness. This is difficult in a world that teaches us that we are number one and that the one who succeeds is the one who grabs at it for himself. But humbleness comes with meekness, patience with everyone and forgiveness. “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.” (Colossians 3:12-13) The test is when someone insults you, ignores you or cheats you. Then we can see if we are humble.
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