What are the features of pride?
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Pride won’t take advice. Are you a good taker of advice? Do you have humility to put it on? I am going to put on humility today and listen to other people and weigh what they say, or leave humility off and take no advice, because pride always knows best.
Pride is opinionated and very careless too sometimes. It can’t be bothered to be precise. The person who has put on humility does everything carefully. I am a fallible person. I can be very foolish. I will check what I do carefully and so on. The proud person, he just rushes on and can be very careless.
A proud person will not apologise and if he does apologise because he has to, he doesn’t mean it. He is not sorry, he won’t back down, he won’t reconcile when he should. Oh, let’s put on humility. I will apologise. I will seek reconciliation. I will see my foolishness, and back down.
Pride must look better than other people and must look good. That is the form it so often takes. It dresses expensively. It must do things to be seen. I am going to put on the apron of humility and do things as unto the Lord. I will please him, not to please human eyes and I am going to be modest.
Pride sometimes aims too high. Sometimes pride shouts a lot. People like to shout because they have been contradicted, or they can’t get their own way. Something of that kind, or they have been defied and they begin to shout, rather than dealing with the thing reasonably and properly.
Pride is blind in the sense that it is blind to the needs of other. Pride is so busy getting its own way. Humility is sensitive to others and their needs, it isn’t blind to other people, because it has a servant spirit and it is for others.
Pride is rude at times because it treats other people with contempt. Pride is unapproachable. Pride moans and complains, if it is hurt. I am so important. I don’t think things are going right. I will go around in self-pity. I will spend hours contemplating the fact, ‘He shouldn’t have done this; she shouldn’t have done that.’ Self-pity and moaning, it is really all part of pride, because I am so special and so important. None of these things should happen to me.
Pride is war-like; it is covetous and greedy, it is not good at depending on the Lord either, so it doesn’t pray.
Pride is critical. It is for ever finding fault with other people, because that boosts ourselves. ‘What is she doing now? What is he doing now? All these foolish people…’
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What can I do to crack down on pride and to put on the garment of humility?
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Start by hating pride, then I won’t want to manifest it.
Think of the value of humility. It drives one of the most important activities you have: self-examination. What have I done? Where have I fallen short? What duties to the Lord have I ignored? What has my speech been like? What unkindness has passed my lips? Self-examination. If we think well of ourselves, then when we come to prayer, there won't be any preparation, any self-examination. God gives grace to the humble. Grace in salvation is unearned, undeserved forgiveness and life in Christ. Grace to the Christian is undeserved help from God that he gives. You will get times of very great assurance. You will have times of comfort. You will have strength for the tasks you carry out in answer to prayer. You will have insight into situations, and you will have understanding of the passages you read and their great depth. You will have instrumentality, and be a blessing towards lost souls; possibly along with others, but these graces will all be yours.
But I've got gifts, you say. There are certain things I cannot help noticing; God has given them to me, things that I'm good at. I find talking to people and witness comes almost naturally to me.’ Do you have that enviable gift of witness? Yes, but you need help, so that it doesn't go to your head, so that you can be trusted with the gift. If you've got gifts and powers – a remarkable memory, an aptitude for this or for that – just remember this: every Christian has a share of gifts. Every believer has gifts appropriate to the function that God will give to them. They are spread evenly throughout the fellowship. Don’t be foolish; don't let it go to your head.
Furthermore, we say to ourselves, ‘I haven't handled my gift at all well. I may have a gift’, you say to yourself, ‘but I'm very deficient in the way I employed it to the glory of God.’
Then we think of other things. ‘In my Christian life I've had more falls than I can count. I tripped up yesterday; I tripped up last week; I tripped up last month. I constantly fail and fall.’ If I remember that, I shall stay lowly in mind. I am a recipient of the wonderful mercy and patience and grace of God in so many ways.
We think of the analogy of the body. ‘What am I in the body of Christ? I am only a toe. I am only a finger. I am only a forearm. I am only this or that part. I am but a part. I am privileged to be a part of the body of Christ, but I’m not the head; only Christ is the head.’ One day, when life comes to an end, when we cross the threshold of eternity, and enter the eternal glory – or when Christ returns, whichever is sooner, then we can glory. Then we can be exalted; then in that last day we could be lifted up to share the reign of Christ, knowing that we are fully children of God, because all foolish, ugly pride, will be purged away from us.
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