The Sin of Pride

Pride, is the deadliest of all vices. Yet it is the one that we seem to fall victim to the most and in the worst ways. It is also a vice veiled in what seems to be honorable and true. How many of us boast about pride in our work, our offspring, and our accomplishments? Some of us even boast of our pride in our virtue and apparent goodness. There is a popular meme right now that describes the achievement of happiness by knowing that your children have become good people, but what exactly is the description of a “good person”. It would be safe to say, this is a relative idea or notion.

But what is wrong with bring proud of our kids, our spouses, our accomplishments and our lives? What is the harm of having pride in successes? Those are the questions prompted from the mastery of Satan’s manipulation of the perception of this vice as being virtuous. He is the master of lies and he has convinced so many of us into the deception that pride is good and honorable. Pride breeds an arrogance that God becomes lost in.

“Your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God.” Deuteronomy 8:14

The opposite of pride is humility.

From humility we can recognize that everything and anything good in our lives comes from God. Instead of boasting about our good fortune and accomplishment, we should be thankful, and grateful in the realization of where and from whom that goodness comes from. We should be praising God for the glory of our successes, not ourselves.

“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.” James 3:13

Pride is us taking the credit for all the good and wonderful aspects of our lives and blaming God for the bad, when in fact humility recognized that all the good is from God and the bad is from our fallen and broken nature. When we can truly understand this, we can obtain a peace that surpasses understanding, because we can then be able to submit ourselves to God and his will for us, and we find a joy from that understanding that cannot be taken from us, even by Satan himself.

“For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude.”

1 Timothy 4:4

Humility and pride cannot co-exist. How does pride in the things God gives to us, build up his kingdom here on Earth? With humility we can do great things for God and all his creation. We can focus our accomplishments and all the good from God to further is plan of salvation for many souls. We can all do great things, but only through Christ who strengthens us. We must revel in the knowledge that all our success and accomplishments should be molded to his plan and enabled for his purposes. With pride we act for ourselves, we take the credit and deny God at work in our lives and hearts. We use his gifts given to us, for our own glory instead of his.

It is a struggle and contrary to what we are told by the world. The spiritual battle is a strong and serious one, and there are no rules. Vice veiled as virtue wins souls for the dark side.

Give God all the Glory, what he does with it, is takes it, and shines it right back down on us. This glory is much brighter when directed from Him and not us trying to shine it on ourselves.