What Is pride and how does it affect your life?
Definition of Pride in the bible:
An inordinate self-esteem; an unreasonable feeling of superiority as to one’s talents, beauty, wealth, rank, and so forth; disdainful behavior or treatment; insolence or arrogance of demeanor; haughty bearing.
Other words for pride: Vanity, conceited, narcissism, self-importance, swell-headedness, self-exaltation, egotistical.
Examples of Pride:
• Looking down on people that are less fortunate than you. Maybe they made bad decisions in life or different decisions than you made.
• Co-worker gets promoted but you feel like you are a harder worker and you deserve it more than they do.
• Putting all your hope in your wealth. Relying on money and stature to make it in this world, therefore you hold onto it and refuse to give to those in need for fear of losing it.
• Overworking and neglecting everything else because making more money is more important to you.
• Refusing to recognize your sin for what it is because you are comfortable and would rather make excuses for it and question God on why you can’t do it.
• Thinking you know better than God and deserve more than he has given you. You get angry with God when you don’t get what you think you deserve.
• Refusing to hear wisdom because you think you already know it all and know more than someone else. You put yourself up on a pedestal.
• Refusing to own up to sin because if others can get away with it then I should too.
• Sinning because you deserve it and are willing to get it anyway you can even if that means breaking morals or laws.
What can pride lead to?
• Separation from God.
• Distrust from people – Death, Fights.
• A harsher punishment.
Bible verses regarding pride to ponder and study:
Proverbs 11:2 – When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.
Proverbs 8:13 – To Fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.
Romans 12:16 – Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
2 Corinthians 10:17-18 – But, Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. 18 For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.
Ezekiel 28:17 – Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings.
Takeaway:
Humility is the opposite of pride. When we are humble, people trust us. When we practice humility we earn respect. Nobody wants to be around someone who only thinks of themselves all the time. Operating in pride causes a life of problems. People will disassociate with you because they think you are selfish so why should they grace you with their presence? Maybe pride caused you to steal and the person or persons you stole from will never trust you again. You lose out on opportunities because of it or worse, end up in prison. Pride can break up a good opportunity to have a friend. If your friend got promoted and you didn’t and you felt that you deserved it more than they did, this can cause there to be a rift there and instead of trusting in the Lord and His timing and celebrating with that friend, you sulk and lose a friendship and miss out on what God had for you. Practicing humility and serving others on a daily basis helps to crowd out humility. Humility and pride cannot co-exist together.
Final Thoughts:
Pride is a signature trait of the devil himself. He wanted to rise above the creator. He thought he deserved to rule the universe. This got him thrown out of heaven. There is no room in the Kingdom for a prideful heart. When we operate out of pride, we grieve the Lord God. He created us. He gives us food and clothing and water. He deserves ALL credit. We have done nothing apart from Him. We have to be mindful when Pride sneaks in and comes out through our actions. We can pray and ask God to deal with our pride and help us to see where it is in our lives and help us to deal with it and kick it out. There is no room for pride to be in our hearts.
Dear Heavenly Father, I come to you now asking for you to reveal any pride that I have brewing in my heart. Help me to see how it is affecting my relationship with you. Please help me to deal with it and kick it out. In Jesus’ Holy name I pray, Amen.
Questions to ponder:
• Can you identify areas of pride in your life?
• Can you identify situations where pride cost you an opportunity or a friendship?
• Has God dealt with you on pride? If so, what did you learn from it?
Collective Circle Gathering 