Do you know that the enemy uses pride to lure us away from the Lord? It is hard to die for yourself and live only to the Lord. But that’s the calling of every Christian. But we don’t like it. And that’s when the enemy steps in. He tries to make us believe that pride is not really a sin. That we actually deserve some praise and acknowledgement. Slowly the anti-God state of mind starts to grow in us.

A man’s pride and sense of self-importance will bring him down,
But he who has a humble spirit will obtain honor.
(Proverbs 29:23, AMP)

Pride lands you flat on your face like the Message version of the verse puts it. Pride makes us think that we manage things on our own just fine. That we want to make it on our own way, without restrictions and rules, just the way we like it.

Soon the anti-God state of mind takes over more and more of our soul

C.S. Lewis has written about pride this way “There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians ever imagine that they are guilty themselves….The essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil; Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind… As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.”

No one in the world is free of pride

We don’t like it in others but we don’t easily see it in ourselves. When we are prideful, we cannot know God. Pride is the complete anti-God state of mind. The enemy uses pride. The pride is the enemy.

What to do then? Do we have any chance in this war against pride? On our own? No. But by God’s grace? Yes, a thousand times yes.

When we realise our dependency on God in everything, we are leaving the anti-God state of mind behind us. When we surrender out egos, our pride, our wills to God daily, we grow in humility and grace. When we live in grace, the enemy does not have power on us.

 

Gracious God,
We need you.
All the time, in everything.
Forgive our selfish tendencies.
Forgive our pridefulness.
Cleanse us, Lord.
Help us to die to ourselves
and fully surrender to you
daily, hourly, momentarily.
We need you.
Create in us the complete God state of mind.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen

Q4U: Do you struggle with pride? How do you deal with it?

Be blessed, my fellow pilgrim, as you let the Holy Spirit create the complete God state of mind in you!

Image courtesy of Mari-Anna Stålnacke. Linking up today with #InspireMeMonday.