1 John 2:16 reminds us, “For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.” If you’ve been following our Youth S.O.U.L. programme on TBC radio at 6 p.m. each week, you would have heard us discussing all these in our series on Temptation. While the Lust of the Flesh tempts us to surrender to our physical desires, the Lust of the Eyes appeals to our materialistic nature, never being satisfied with what we have and always wanting more. Pride of Life involves an unhealthy obsession with our own importance, arrogance, and being our own god instead of serving Jesus Christ. The cure for all these sins is a deep love for Jesus, which leads us to be self-controlled, content with what we have, generous, and humble, while giving glory to God.
PRIDE: THE FIRST SIN
We are first introduced to the concept of pride with the fall of Satan, chronicled in Isaiah 14:12–14 and Ezekiel 28:12–18. Absolutely beautiful and wise, he was dissatisfied with his position in God’s kingdom. So he said, “I will make myself like the Most High.” That doesn’t sound too bad, does it?
He wanted to be like God; isn’t that a good thing? However, Satan’s motive was evil because he wanted to overthrow God instead of becoming like Him in character. When he sought to replace God Almighty and receive God’s glory for himself, he was cast out of heaven with a third of the angels who chose to follow him. Consequently, God made him a prime example of the scripture, “Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled.” (Matthew 23:12 AMP).
I’M MY OWN GOD
Misery loves company, and Satan now uses the same temptation that caused him to fall to also drag the whole human race out of a right relationship with God. Eve was convinced that by eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, she would become like God. Consumed with pride, she put her desire to be ‘like God’ above God’s command not to eat of the forbidden fruit. Instead of becoming like God, Adam and Eve and all their descendants (including you and me) became slaves to sin.
Whenever we place our own desires above God’s commands, we are walking in pride. Pride says, “I don’t need God or his commands; I am my own god, and I do whatever I think is best for me.” Pride acts independently of God and seeks to replace Him; it does not acknowledge that without God, we can do nothing!
PRIDE: THE SHAPESHIFTER
We’ve all heard that “pride goes before a fall…” The Pride of Life causes us to approach life in our own strength, something the Scripture explicitly warns against. It gives us a “me complex” where we are conceited and ‘boasy,’ preoccupied with our own abilities and considering ourselves superior to others. That is the perfect recipe for God to resist us. Can you imagine desiring something from God and being answered with His rejection? Contrastingly, His grace is freely given to the humble.
Sometimes, we are completely oblivious to our actions that are rooted in pride. Fear, unforgiveness, insecurity, low self-esteem, arrogance, self-righteousness, disregard for authority, and the like are all rooted in pride. When fear cripples us to disobedience, we are prideful in considering our fears more important than what God has said or commanded us to do. When we refuse to forgive our brothers and companions, we pridefully deem them unworthy of our forgiveness because ‘how dare she do that to me?’ Insecurities and low self-esteem are often rooted in pride because they exalt our flawed opinions of ourselves above God’s declarations about us.
In addition, self-righteousness pridefully claims credit for salvation even though we have no righteousness inherently in ourselves, and our righteousness comes from God. Disregard for government authorities, parents, workplace authorities, and other authorities is also rooted in pride because we consider our ways of doing things to be superior to the laws or rules outlined by the various authorities.
HOW CAN WE GET RID OF PRIDE IN OUR LIVES?
How do we get rid of that destructive, prideful mentality? Do we switch to a narrative that says “I’m not good enough” or “I’m not that talented” or decline compliments or applause when we do praiseworthy things? Absolutely not. Contrary to popular belief, low self-esteem or self-deprecation is not humility. In other words, developing an attitude of humility does not mean that we downplay our God-given gifts and abilities and become the proverbial ‘walkover.’ You don’t have to put yourself down. At the same time, it does not involve us proclaiming to the world that we are humble. Instead, true humility leads us back to our Creator, where we find out exactly what He has said about us and actively walk in that identity daily, being all that Christ has called us to be. Nothing more, nothing less.
There are a few powerful jabs that we can use to defeat pride in this fight. The first one is acknowledging that pride is a sin. Once we acknowledge that pride is a sin, we will then find a way to move away from it if our desire is to please Jesus. Recognise that Jesus alone deserves all glory and honour (John 3:30). “He must increase; I must decrease.”
Repentance is next. If we don’t repent and change our behaviour as prideful people, we are ultimately choosing a life of sin and also choosing hell. We must admit our prideful ways and ask for God’s forgiveness with a genuine heart.
Another powerful punch to pride is renewed thinking: know that you are victorious over pride because Jesus has enabled you to choose humility through the help of the Holy Spirit (James 4:6 AMP).
The final blow to pride is application. Practice what you’ve learned by finding scriptures that speak about humility and meditating on them. Spend time with God, and as you get closer to him, you will humble yourself based on how glorious He is, and you will give Him the glory first for all your talents and abilities. (Romans 12:3-5)
Remember to tune in to Youth S.O.U.L. each Friday. You may also stream via online radio platforms.