Do You Think Highly of Yourself?

Church Family: Do you think highly of yourself? How would you know? Well, are you self-sufficient, thinking that you do not need any help from anybody? Are you self-serving, always thinking how will this benefit me not others? Do you think of yourself as superior because of who you are or what you do or what you have or what you look like? Do you think that God would struggle without you on His team? Do you impress yourself with your own knowledge, skills and work? Are you uncommitted, unaccountable, unsubmissive or ungrateful? Is everybody else always the problem? Are you envious, critical, slanderous, or divisive? As you read this are you thinking of someone else that needs to be reading this other than yourself?

The most important thing we need to understand about pride is that God hates it (Prov. 6:16-17, 8:13; 11:2; 16:5, 18; James 4:6). What is pride? Pride is an attitude of freedom from God. In Scripture, pride is equal to scoffing, arrogance, foolishness, evil, and wickedness. Pride is always contrary to the humble, peaceful, joyful, meekness that a God-fearing heart produces.

Pride is a condition of the heart where a person has ousted the rule of God over his life and replaced that rule with their own will. Instead of depending entirely on God, a proud heart now looks to itself to decide what is good and evil. A prideful heart then becomes a prideful mind producing prideful actions and prideful words. This was exactly the sin of Adam and Eve when they decided to disobey God to become like God.

In Romans 12:3, Paul tells us that when we think of ourselves highly, and pridefully, then we are not thinking the way God thinks of us. We are not thinking soberly. We are thinking as if we were intoxicated with self, not in our right minds. The proper response of the Christian who is a living sacrifice is that we understand that our entire life is all by the grace of God. All that we are, all that we have, every promise of God, every mercy of God, every future hope is all His undeserved favor that He has poured upon us freely. We have not earned any of God's blessings, they are His undeserved gift to us. Understanding what God has done for us in grace will always kill a prideful, arrogant, haughty look and thought. There is no place before God and in His Church for pride.

God's grace is a power that is made perfect in your weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). “Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you” (James 4:10). Our hope is a humble faith in our humble Savior. Confess pride, receive God's forgiveness, receive His powerful grace and live for His glory not your own.
 
See you Sunday, living in amazing grace: Steve