Overcoming Pride

…it is from our pride that we need, above everything else, to be redeemed.  And our insight into the need of redemption will largely depend upon our knowledge of the terrible nature of the power of pride that has entered our being.

Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness, Andrew Murray

The Serpent spoke temptation to Eve; go ahead and eat the fruit.  You can be like God; this was the prideful temptation.

Humility, from that moment, was replaced by pride – Satan’s pride – in man’s nature.  You could say that Satan thereafter held the first pride parade, in celebration of all of the wars, bloodshed, selfishness, suffering, broken hearts and embittered lives to come – all driven by this pride.

Pride has this supernatural origin; recognizing this might cause despair, but the proper attitude is to realize the need for a power outside of ourselves.  Overcoming pride will require the aid of a supernatural power – the redemption of the Lamb of God. 

…the utter despair will fit us better for realizing and accepting a power and life outside of ourselves, the humility of heaven brought down by the Lamb of God to cast out Satan and his pride.

Our pride grows out of the root from which it sprang: Satan and his pride.  It is only through the root of the Incarnate God that we can overcome Satan’s pride.  The battle – our internal battle – is this difficult and intense.  For this reason, we must study and know the life of Christ if we are to overcome this pride.  Through this, we will find His chief characteristic: humility.

His Incarnation, His becoming a man, His taking the form of a servant, His being obedient even unto death.  What are each of these other than complete and total humility?  His was God’s humility embodied in human nature.  Instead of the root of pride offered to us by Satan, we, as Christians, are to grow from this root of humility offered to us from the Incarnate God.

If this is the root of the tree…then the health and strength of our spiritual life will depend entirely upon our putting this grace first and making humility the chief attribute we ask of Him, the one thing for which we sacrifice all else.

If the Christian life appears weak and fruitless, if the joy of salvation is so little felt, can it be because the root of the Christian life is neglected, unknown, or seldom sought? 

Until a humility that rests in nothing less than the end and death of self…there is very little hope of a faith that will conquer the world.

To make this necessarily more personal: without humility, there is very little hope of a faith that will conquer me.

Manifestations of temper and touchiness and irritation, feelings of bitterness and estrangement, have their root in nothing but pride.

What would be the effect on the world if Christians acted with the root of humility?  What would be the effect on each of us regarding our love for Lord, for our neighbors, and even for our enemies?  Humility – nothing but our consent to let God be all, just as Jesus did.

How many times did Jesus say words to the effect that He could do nothing of Himself, but only God’s will?  That He did not aim to please Himself or man, but to please God?  That He was not seeking glory for Himself?  Here we find the deepest motivation for His work.  His total devotion to God’s will is what we see in His example.  He lost nothing by doing this; instead, He gained the most exalted position.

He teaches us where true humility begins and finds its strength – in the knowledge that it is God who works all in all, that our place is to yield to Him in perfect resignation and dependance, in full consent to be and to do nothing of ourselves. 

What a high bar, and an impossible ask for humans in our natural state.  Therefore, all the more reason to urge us to seek it in and through Him.  It is the only way.

The root of all virtue and grace, of all faith and acceptable worship, is that we know that we have nothing but what we receive, and bow in deepest humility to wait upon God for it.

This humility was the spirit of Jesus’s entire life.  He was humble with God, and He was humble with those around Him.  He yielded to God so that He could do the work of God. 

…all the virtues of the heavenly life stem from humility.  It is humility alone that makes the impassable gulf between heaven and hell. … There never was or ever will be but one humility, and that is the humility of Christ.

This did not make Him weak or insecure; nothing of Jesus’s life and ministry would suggest such a thing.  In fact, those who are most vocal about pride are also those who are the most insecure.  Instead, true humility will raise a spirit of self-confidence and true courage – all from the same root from which humility grows. 

We can take a lesson in this, a comfort in our desire to seek humility.

Conclusion

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, humbling Himself and obedient unto death.  Therefore, God exalted Him.

-          Philippians 2: 5-9, greatly paraphrased and summarized.

“The only hope of a decreasing self is an increasing Christ.”

-          F. B. Meyer

“If you are looking for an example of humility, look at the cross.”

-          Thomas Aquinas

If we live like Christ, we will die like Christ.  Not necessarily on a cross, and not even in a physical sense.  But our self must die, our pride must die.  Just as His did.