HOW TO GET RID OF PRIDE

What is pride? Actually, there are different kinds of pride you can feel or display ... some are good, and some are not.

You can have pride in being a Christian. You can also be proud of another person for many different reasons. You can take pride in something that you've accomplished. These are all good things.

Then, there's the other kind of pride. This is the one that God doesn't like. It comes from too much self esteem. There are some words that are kin to pride, like arrogance, conceit, haughtiness, highfalutin, vainglory, pompous, etc.

No matter what name it's given, it doesn't change the fact that nobody wants to be identified by such a thing. If anyone has ever accused you of being prideful, you know what a disdainful feeling it is, and many times, ugh, pride steps in and tries to defend itself, then things get even uglier.

Why are people so prideful?

There are a number of reasons:

1. Not wanting to appear to have failed.
2. To avoid embarrassment.
3. Because it's hard to accept blame for something they did.
4. They forget that God doesn't like it.
5. To make themselves feel important.

Etc.

Pride is a stickler for trying to disguise itself. What I mean is that it is evil by nature and it wants to convince people that it's not really pride that they are overcome by many times, but something else. We're going to take a look at some different situations in this study and see how pride can subtly control you if you're not careful.

Pride, as it's name indicates, usually plays it's wicked games when it sees the opportunity to make you feel like you're right about something and someone else is wrong.

PRIDE BIBLE VERSES STUDY
HOW TO GET RID OF PRIDE PROBLEMS

Let's say an issue is being discussed that you're not well versed about. You don't want to appear unknowing so you voice your opinion, and someone points out that you're wrong about it. Pride will have you come up with as many points as you can to support what you said, no matter how insignificant, and you will refuse to concede that you were wrong 'till the cows come home even after you realize your error ... Which you eventually do, but to admit it would just be too humiliating for you. (But wait a sec, isn't humility a good thing?)

Here's a popular prideful act that most people engage in. You offer an apology to someone for something, but immediately after you say you're sorry, you add, "But ......." Why is it so terribly difficult to say those two simple words, "I'm sorry," and leave it at that? The only three words that should come after the words, "I'm sorry," are, "I was wrong." When you add, "But .......," you're really giving your excuse for why you think that what you did was okay, and that you're really not sorry after all. You're defending your action, not apologizing for it. A good thing to remember about this one is ... don't do it to God either.

Often times, you'll find pride speaking against the good. If you ever find yourself contending with things that you know down deep in your heart are righteous, that's a sure indication of pride. Christians endure this display of pride often times from non-Christians, but even within the fellowship of Christians, pride will urge some people to disagree with just about anything just to be provocative or to try and prove someone wrong. When you need to step on someone else to make yourself taller, pride is the culprit.

You may have been a victim of someone else's pride or witnessed it in the chat room from time to time. Pride loves to question and contend with TRUTH. You're in good company ... it looks as if David had this problem with people too:

And Paul experienced this too, and teaches not to associate with people who insist on this kind of behavior.

Speaking pridefully has a distinct flavor to it. You know the one. Your throat tightens up even before you're done speaking and the bottom of the shoe (from sticking your foot in your mouth) is kinda like gravel. You wish you hadn't spoken, but alas. Will you follow up with more pride or will you be able to climb down from the pedestal you've put yourself on, back down to humility, which is where you belong, by admitting you were prideful and ask God for forgiveness (without any buts)?

Some people will even seek others to take their side when they are acting pridefully, and though the majority may agree with them, righteousness and TRUTH will always prevail.

Pride is defiling. That's a very harsh word you might say, but pride is an ugly monster that people don't take as seriously as they should. Jesus included pride in with some pretty wicked other things that are dangerous to our souls.

Pride also puts distance between you and God.

Pride is a sin.

Pride is a disease that is spreading rapidly, and if you think about it carefully, you may find that parents are actually infecting their own children with this epidemic, without even realizing what they're doing.

PRIDE BIBLE VERSES WARNING
HOW TO GET RID OF PRIDE DANGERS

Here's how that works. You have a child (we'll call him Jr.) and you love that child so very very much that you praise each and every little thing that little Jr. does because you're so proud, and y'know, all the child rearing experts say it's the right thing to do. Even things that Jr. is supposed to do are made a big deal of, as though he did something extraordinary.

"Awwwww, look honey, Jr. turned the light off when he left the room ... isn't he smarrrrrt?!

OH BROTHER!

"Build their self esteem," they say, "They're gonna need a lot of confidence to compete in today's world," they say, "Focus on the positive," they say, etc., etc., etc.

PROBLEM ...

The 'experts' seem to have ignored the Word of God in all their theories. Our job as parents isn't to nourish our children's precious little egos,

... and that means discipline must be exercised when needed, not only praise. Incidentally, as Christians, we are taught by our Lord to be selfless, and esteem others ABOVE ourselves, therefore, the less we feed our ego, the more we grow in the Lord, and the less likely we are to be prideful.

Our Father's plans of how children should be raised are not only being ravaged by today's 'experts' but by the law as well. People have let the world dictate how they raise their children instead of obeying what our Lord tells us. In fact, upholding the Word of God is even illegal in some states. You may not chasten your child the way God commands or you will be thrown in jail.

Anyway ... the results of all this pride business to many parents' chagrin, is that we've ended up with children who think they can do no wrong. Talk about the perfect setup for a dangerous generation of adults ... whew! No wonder our world today reeks of arrogance, conceit, stubbornness ...

PRIDE!

Pride is nothing new. We've learned that pride is sin, and we know that sin is something we've all inherited from our ancestors Adam and Eve and that we must fight it every day. You may believe that in today's world it's more difficult to fight the battle against sin, than in Biblical times, but folks, spiritual warfare has been around ever since that fated day in the garden of Eden.

I'd like to take you back in time for a moment to the exodus from Egypt. After hundreds of years of slavery and God Almighty bringing freedom to the children of Israel with wondrous miracles, their pride overcame them frequently in the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land. So much so, in fact, they earned the title 'stiffnecked people' from God Himself.

What do you think the term 'stiffnecked' means? That's right ... prideful.

PRIDE BIBLE TRAP AND PRIDE BIBLE PLAGUE

Their pride caused God to only allow the ones twenty years and younger to enter His chosen land, because their prideful ways were an abomination to Him.

No, ladies and gentlemen, pride is nothing new, only the generation is new.

Everyone thinks they know it all, everyone thinks they have a better way ... even God's chosen people thought they knew better than God. No wonder pride has earned the disgust it merits in our Lord's eyes.

An interesting thing to ponder on, is how many other sins have pride as their origin. How many of our sins start out with pride and then evolve ... or add other sins to it?

In our Christian walk, we strive to be like Jesus. He, being the Son of God is the only person to ever live that had a right to esteem Himself better than anyone else, yet He was meek, humble, a servant to all those He encountered. Do we practice this kind of humility in our lives while we steady boast that we represent Christianity, or is pride our manner of choice?

Did you know that anger is an element of pride?

The Bible also says that pride will be one of the signs of the End Times, and that we should avoid people who are prideful:

Did you know that many times God speaks to us in our dreams because when we're conscious, we're so busy with our own purpose (our own view of what's important) that we miss God speaking to us, so in our dreams, God makes His messages clear, while our pride is also asleep.

Ah, one last thing to sort of sum things up. This is a very important thing to know. Pride can prevent grace:

Put your pride to sleep, and awaken to GRACE!

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