“Pride is concerned with who is right. Humility is concerned with what is right.” Ezra T. Benson

Pride goes before destruction,

a haughty spirit before a fall.

Proverbs 16:18 NIV

We hear the word pride tossed around today as a good thing. I would agree that there are times and positive things to be proud of, but I stop short of glorifying sin with the word ‘pride’. There is a good pride. I am proud of the music I have made and the books I have written and the things I have done for the kingdom of God. I am proud of my children and grandchildren. I am proud of my wife…but I cannot attribute pride to anything God calls sin.

Pride has, by far, a more negative side to it. Pride is an excessive, undue, and often arrogant belief in one's own superiority or importance.  For instance, one can take excessive pride in one's physical appearance. Praise is a haughty manner resulting from an overly high opinion of oneself. One has but to look at Hollywood to see this on full display. Negative pride, or hubris, is an excessive, self-centered love of one's own excellence, often considered a sin in theological contexts and leading to disregard for others or a downfall. 

God’s Word makes it very clear what God thinks of pride in James 4:1-7 NIV:

1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble." 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

I believe reality is that all good things are given by God and that all my personal accomplishments I take pride in can be directly attributed to him. He inspired the books I have written. He inspired every song I have penned. He gave me those 9 children. He breathed life into my 13 grandchildren. He brought me the perfect wife for me. He is responsible for any good things I have brought to the kingdom of God. In James 1:17 NIV God spells it out plainly:

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

One of the greatest examples of a person who ‘got this’ was Corrie ten Boom. Corrie ten Boom was a watchmaker and later a Christian writer and public speaker, who worked with her father, Casper ten Boom, her sister Betsie ten Boom and other family members to help many Jewish people escape from the Nazis during the Holocaust in World War II by hiding them in her home. They were caught, and she was arrested and sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Her most famous book,The Hiding Place, is a biography that recounts the story of her family's efforts and how she found and shared hope in God while she was imprisoned at the concentration camp. She went on to tell her story to millions upon millions of people all over the world. She should have been proud when heaped with praise, but she was the epitome of humility.

Corrie ten Boom had a well-known analogy about receiving praise: "When people come up and give me a compliment, I take each remark as if it were a flower. At the end of the day I lift up the bouquet of flowers I have gathered throughout the day and say, 'Here you are, Lord, it is all Yours.’" She used this "bouquet of flowers" to give glory back to God rather than to herself. 

And just what is humility? Humility is a God-centered, other-focused posture of the heart characterized by recognizing our dependence on God, admitting our own limitations and sinfulness, and valuing others above ourselves, as exemplified by Jesus Christ. It involves a sober self-assessment, a willingness to serve, and an absence of selfish ambition or pride, reflecting a correct understanding of our place before God.

"True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.” Rick Warren

Miss Corrie recognized that God was opposed to the proud but that He extended grace and mercy to the humble. It seems that the more she expressed humility the more famous she became. Go figure! I believe she understood that she was not placed on this earth for her own good or her own glory, but that she was here to lay down her life for others and, first and foremost, for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

“The only thing more dangerous than ignorance is arrogance.” Albert Einstein

What I have discovered in my own life is that pride wells up in me because I want to be noticed and because I think more highly of my own than the needs of others. I have all discovered that each time I allow pride to distort my self-importance that the pedestal I have placed myself on tends to crumble and fall and I am left devastated. The remedy that always works is humbling myself before God and others - not in a groveling or insincere way - but in a way that says, “This life is not about me. It is about God and others.” Without fail, God begins to pour out grace and mercy to me and I am compelled to minister to the needs of others in the name of Jesus.

When I have thoughts of irrelevance or lack of purpose is when I start feeling the weight of pride upon my life. This is where arrogance begins to take root in our minds. These thoughts give rise to prideful feelings. When those feelings begin to consume me, I have learned (and I am still learning) that by ministering to the needs of others, I find my own needs are met. I am fulfilled by the love and mercy of God and His presence in my life and I am bathed in a shower of meaningful relevance and purpose.

“Pride is the carbon monoxide of sin. It silently and slowly kills you without you even knowing.” Tim Keller

Arrogance is a haughty, prideful attitude of self importance that disregards God and others. It's seen as an abomination to God, leading to a proud look, self-sufficiency, contempt, and boasting in oneself rather than the Lord. The Bible consistently condemns arrogance, emphasizes its destructive consequences, and calls for humility as its opposite.

What I have found is that people do not like to be around haughty, prideful, arrogant people…unless they are butt-kissers (as we say in the south) and desire the attentions of being ‘seen’ by such people in the hope that they, too, will be seen as something ‘better than’ or ‘more than’. Basically, they want to be seen as important…to have relevance and purpose. What they cannot see is that only by humility can we ever truly discover and enjoy the fruits of what God calls relevant and purposeful. We would do ourselves a world of good by remember why Jesus came in the first place…and then, do the same regardless of how we make a living.

In Luke 19:10 NIV, God’s Word tells us, “…the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

And just how did He do that? He laid down His life for all of us. I guess the best way to find and live a humble life is to lay our own lives down for the sake of others. Remember, the power of life and death is in the tongue - the words we say. How can yo lay down your life or minister to someone else by the words you say?

The other side of that coin is found in John 10:18. This verse is a direct declaration from Jesus about His authority over His own life: "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. I received this commandment from my Father". This passage emphasizes that His death was a voluntary act, not something forced upon Him. 

Then we find in John 15:13 even more specificity about the matter of laying down one’s life. This verse highlights Jesus' ultimate act of love: "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends". It is presented as the highest form of sacrificial love, and Jesus identifies Himself as laying down His life for His followers.

Then in 1 John 3:16, we find this verse explains the significance of Jesus' sacrifice, stating, "We know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us". By laying down His life, Jesus demonstrated God's immense love and provided a model for how believers should live. 

How can one be prideful when demonstrating love by sacrificing his life for another? He can’t. He will actually find that many others will be drawn to the love of Jesus as a result of their sacrifice…even if that sacrifice should lead to physical death. As I write this portion of the book, it has been 3 weeks since political activist and messenger of the Gospel, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated due to His outspoken faith in Jesus Christ. What we are seeing all across America - and around the word - is astounding. Rather than silencing a major voice for change in our culture, the assassin’s bullet has actually magnified and intensified and opened up Charlie’s message to millions of young people who are having to reckon with the questions Charlie posed by the way in which he lived his life and treated others. They are coming face to face with the realization that hope cannot be found in the political/governmental realm, as many would have us believe. Hope is found in Jesus and Charlie’s sacrifice is extending that hope even in death.

He was, in my estimation, the epitome of humility. Ready to meet Jesus, he opened himself up to meeting the needs of others by very publicly extolling the work of Christ on the cross and by being willing to listen to ANYONE and answer any question, regardless of how vile and mocking and reprehensible those questions might have been. I imagine he is standing very near to miss Corrie right now, lifting up the bouquet of flowers he had gathered throughout the days of his life and saying, 'Here you are, Lord, it is all Yours.'"

Dennis Jernigan

The above info is from a book I am currently working on called “Parkinson’s & Recreation 3 - The No Parkinson’s Zone”. It is unedited and may have additions made in the final manuscript. Dennis Jernigan

Photo courtesy of https://pixabay.com/photos/humble-sign-signage-metal-word-732566/