Uglier than Pride

You see it all over the place. The arrogant look of the competent soccer star; the smug look of the little league superstar; the haughty glance of the person who is a tad bit prettier than the rest of us. Pride is ugly. If you like me it repulses you to the core. For years there have been people who have tried to turn it into a positive character trait. We talk smack on the basketball court, we speak highly of ourselves on our resume, we blog as if we had all the answers to the questions of life (ouch!). But no matter how hard we try to promote pride and mask it as confidence it smells bad and makes us sick to our stomach! Even more so it sickens God. James 4.6 God resists the proud. Hmmmm. The God of love who pursued us even to death on the cross is repulsed by our pride- even to the point of resisting our prayers and our person. Wow, he is made sick by it too.

But there is something uglier than pride. It is hard to imagine but it is true. It is spiritual pride. Pride that masks itself in pseudo-spirituality; Pride that covers its ugliness with the language of the Spirit but is profoundly of the flesh; Pride that judges others as less than self. Spiritual pride condemns others, judges others, and can't see the failings in their own hearts. It is the ugliest thing that anyone will ever see! It makes me sick when I see it- especially so when I see it in me!

I was talking about spiritual pride the other day with my best friend. She said to me that "people who have this kind of pride- spiritual pride- had better have their knee pads on because pride comes before the fall."

Well said.