Insidious Pride

Bread

The Lion Loosed

18 Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

Proverbs 16:18 (NIV)

2 When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.

Proverbs 11:2 (NIV)

5 The LORD detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.

Proverbs 16:5 (NIV)

23 A man's pride brings him low, but a man of lowly spirit gains honor.

Proverbs 29:23 (NIV)

17 You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” 18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.

Deuteronomy 8:17-18 (NIV)

13 To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.

Proverbs 8:13 (NIV)

3 “The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home on the heights, you who say to yourself, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’ 4 Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down,” declares the LORD.

Obadiah 1:3-4 (NIV)

16 There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: 17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, 19 a false witness who pours out lies and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.

Proverbs 6:16-19 (NIV)

36 At the same time that my sanity was restored, my honor and splendor were returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored to my throne and became even greater than before. 37 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble.

Daniel 4:36-37 (NIV)

15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world--the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does--comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

1 John 2:15-17 (NIV)

7 For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?

1 Corinthians 4:7 (NIV)

Butter

The Lesson Learned

“Pride is the devil’s dragnet in which he takes more fish than in any other, except procrastination.” Charles H. Spurgeon

“Pride alienates man from heaven; humility leads to heaven.” Bridget of Sweden

“Don’t slack off seeking, striving, and praying for the very same things that we exhort unconverted people to strive for, and a degree of which you have had in conversion. Thus pray that your eyes may be opened, that you may receive sight, that you may know yourself and be brought to God’s feet, and that you may see the glory of God and Christ, may be raised from the dead, and have the love of Christ shed abroad in your heart. Those that have most of these things still need to pray for them; for there so much blindness and hardness and pride and death remaining that they still need to have that work of God upon them, further to enlighten and enliven them. This will be a further bringing out of darkness into God’s marvelous light, and a kind of new conversion...” Jonathan Edwards

“We make our choices and then our choices make us. Our everyday choices reveal what we really desire. The essence of sin is pride. The heart of sin is independence and the core of sin is demanding my own way instead of God’s.” Pat Singleterry

“Here is the divine antidote against the pride and restless ambition of the men of this world. Nothing is more sad than to witness a pushing, bustling, forward, self-confident spirit and style in those who profess to be followers of Him who was meek and lowly in heart. It is such a flagrant contradiction of the spirit and precepts of Christianity, and is a sure accompaniment of an unbroken condition of the soul. It is utterly impossible for any one to indulge in a boastful, pretentious, self-confident spirit, if ever he has really measured himself in the presence of God. To be much alone with God is the sovereign remedy for pride and self-complacency. May we know the reality of this in the secret of our own souls. May the good Lord keep us truly humble, in all our ways, simply leaning on Himself and his grace...” C H Macintosh

“Pride not only withdraws the heart from God, but lifts it up against God.” Thomas Manton

“Pride is as safely the sign of destruction as the change of mercury in the weather-glass is the sign of rain; and far more infallibly so than that. When men have ridden the high horse, destruction has always overtaken them...God hates high looks, and never fails to bring them down. All the arrows of God are aimed at proud hearts.” Charles H. Spurgeon

“Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.” Thomas Merton

“All the commandments of God are commandments of love tending to our real good and great happiness; far from being grievous to those who have faith and love, the practice thereof is life and peace. The world may think it a grievous burden; but this is a great mistake indeed. Sin is grievous. In hatred, envy, anger, revenge, pride, there is nothing but torment and slavery; but in love there is a sweet rest and pleasure. Thus a sinner always punishes himself, and is robbed of great peace and blessing, by transgressing the commandments of God.” K. H. Von Bogatzky

“And if you don’t lie prostrate on the ground before that cross, you have never seen it: if you are not humbled in the presence of Jesus, you don’t know Him. You were so lost that nothing could save you but the sacrifice of God’s only begotten. Think of that, and as Jesus lowered Himself for you, bow yourself in lowliness at His feet. A sense of Christ’s amazing love to us has a greater tendency to humble us than even the conscious awareness of our own guilt......Pride cannot live beneath the cross.” Charles H. Spurgeon

“Pride is utter poverty of soul disguised as riches.” John Climacus

“It’s really your ugly pride that makes you afraid. Just bow in humility — and you’ll rise up in courage. It’s only pride’s hunger for perfection that paralyzes a heart. It’s being enslaved to perfectionism that keeps us enslaved to fear. Pride is fear’s father — and pride is the kin to all cowards. Courage for the impossible can only be found in the possibility of humility. Because ‘This is the one God esteems: he who is humble...’ (Isaiah 66:2). Courage lives in the heart of the lowly... those who can embrace humility and the possibility of imperfection ... because that needy place is the place we meet God. Humility births courage and is brother to the brave.” Ann Voskamp

Heart Savor

The Lion Roars

  • We are never to be lacking in zeal but keep our spiritual fervor serving the Lord.
  • We are to be zealous for the Lord’s great Name – through His power for His glory.
  • Create in me a pure heart and a steadfast spirit Oh Lord.