PRIDE

Zeitgeist 

Pride is the spirit of the age these days. That is probably something that could be said about every age. It is at the core of much of what sin is. When the Apostle John was describing sin, one of the three phrases he used was “the pride of life.” (1 John 2:16) This is only made worse in our current culture because pride is actually celebrated. Many have asserted that the danger of capitalism is that greed becomes a virtue. However, in a world where personal autonomy, self expression, and radical individualistic authenticity are the standard for a relativistic morality, pride is good.

So much of our lives is captured by the prison of our own pride. Pride is dangerous and brings many snares and traps. Pride causes us to have a distorted and even perverted view of the reality around us. However, this distortion is not perceived by us because it is what we want to be true. The more prideful we become individually and societally, the more blinded we become to just how warped our understanding truly is.

Me, Myself, & I

At the heart of pride is the exaltation of self. Narcissist is a word that comes from a character in Greek mythology. The story goes that Narcissus was an attractive young man who, upon beholding his magnificent visage in a pool of water, fell in love with himself. His desire to love himself led him to despair that he could not love himself enough to the point that he committed suicide. You might think that this is crazy. Don’t people who hurt or kill themselves suffer from too low a self esteem instead of too high? 
Actually, both self love and self loathing usually come from the same prideful root. That is that even if a person hates himself it is probably because he thinks he deserves to be better or have a better life than he has. Here, the problem is still pride, albeit indirectly. 

This is also at the root of our sin against God. We love ourselves more than God who deserves for us to love Him entirely. I am not saying that we should not love ourselves. Both Jesus and the law said “that we are to love others as we love ourselves.” (Matthew 22:39) However, we are still called to love God supremely, with our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Whoa….Careful

All of this danger is why the Scripture repeatedly warns us about the dangers of arrogance and pride. The wisdom of God tells us that pride leads us straight into failure and ruin (Proverbs 16:18). These warnings are in the pages of the sacred text to compel us away from the tragic path of selfish pride. The worst part is that this makes us enemies of God. God says that the proud and the arrogant are His opponents (James 4:6). Being enemies of God is the worst situation to be in and it is exactly what Jesus came to correct. Jesus came while we were still the enemies of God to make us children of God and bring reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:16-21). But if we continue in unrepentant pride we will not desire or acquire this salvation that comes to us only through humble faith in Jesus Christ!

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