Overcoming Pride - By Humility and Gratitude

James 4:6 

“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”

When we have a high self-esteem, it is considered (in worldly sight) as good for personal development and for worldly accomplishments. There are so many courses and workshops out there which are aimed at improving our Self-esteem and Self-confidence. Let us be warned that, what the world goes after, is usually things that are against God, and that these Self-oriented human characteristics often lead to pride – a deadly weapon used by Satan to defeat even the most powerful men who were mightily used by God. And God is against proud people because their self-esteem is too high that they can't see the goodness and talents in others - not even God, and they simply cannot stand correction from others - not even from God!

         It is certainly true that GOD wants to lift up our heads high, (for He loves to bless us and uplift us) but we must be careful when we meet our successes (material, professional or spiritual), so that we do not esteem ourselves more than the God who helped us through that success. The Bible says that God resists the proud people. To resist usually means to fight against someone who starts the fight, which means the proud people pick up fights with God and often without even knowing whom they are fighting against! The more proud we get, the more aggressive and rebellious we become! The enemy makes our heart so haughty, to a point that we start rebelling against God itself(Yes, pride makes us so blind!) and that's why God has to resist the proud people!

  Pride manifests itself in us in the following ways: we often criticize others, who usually perform well, for their rare and small mistakes, we reproach others for their underperformance, we never take others' input for our betterment, we can never listen to someone's correction for our mistakes - especially if that correction comes from someone whom our haughty heart considers as lower than our stature - in terms of accomplishments or age or status. No doubt, it is the people who are gifted  with more talents and great achievements, who are prone to pride – which is such a deadly Satanic blow. But even the normal people who receive God’s blessing, are in the same dangerous state of being vulnerable to pride – if their focus shifts to their achievements. So, how do we keep ourselves from pride, when God’s blessing comes in our lives? We cannot do it by ourselves, but with the reliance on God's grace, and with a humble heart, we can stand guard against pride.

Firstly, true humility from the heart is required from our part, if we are to stand in God’s grace without falling prey to pride. Humility is not pretending to be an under performer or an unsuccessful person. It is the true realization of GOD'S grace, that we, in fact are nothing (which is the absolute truth!) and if not for GOD'S grace, we could not even breathe, let alone being successful! It is again, a “grace”, to realize that everything we own, every skill we have, every opportunity we get, every success that comes our way - is only by GOD'S grace and not by our efforts or intellect! When we begin to value success more than we value God, we start valuing ourselves and we start nurturing our deadly pride! Realization of our true, pitiful and insecure condition from which God has lifted us - is absolutely necessary to appreciate GOD'S mercy and grace which has helped us come thus far.

Secondly, we need to be grateful to God (since all credit belongs to HIM alone) when we get Good things in life. Humility (realization of the truth of our weakness and the strength of HIS grace) and gratitude (giving  all credit and praise to God, who enables us to come up in life) are the weapons by which we fight against the greatest and toughest enemy - pride!

  The Bible says that God gives more grace and more blessing to those who humble themselves. Humbling is the process of making ourselves low (knowing our true state of unworthiness) and it comes only when we repeatedly remind ourselves of how God’s grace has been working in our lives right from day 1! God brought us forth into this world alive – which is a grace – since no one could ever choose to be born that way; God gave us everything we required as a child – the right parents, the family background, the financial situations and the like – which is a grace – no one could choose which family to be born in; God chose to bless us – which is again a grace – no one could bless himself with money, material stuff or intellect without being gifted from above. So, everything we’ve received, everything we’ve been through is merely grace! I believe that, grace is nothing but GOD'S mercy for the unworthy and the undeserving “us”, to enable us to succeed in our endeavors even though we are not qualified for such divine help and mercy. Only if we know and acknowledge our humble status, can we receive GOD'S mercy and grace, but if we are proud, we don't want anybody - not even God - to interfere in our lives for we'd have too much of self-confidence and Self-reliance that we can accomplish it all by our own will power and capabilities! The end result of our pride - we get too blind to see GOD'S grace that upholds us every day, and we begin to resist God and HIS divine intervention in our lives – which will slowly ruin us!

  Let us therefore rely only on GOD'S grace, be reminded of our humble status always and be thankful to HIM who makes all our endeavors, a success! Let us search our own hearts and if we find that our focus is gradually shifting from GOD'S grace to our accomplishments and successes (which means we value “success” more than “God” who made us succeed), we are a vulnerable prey to the devil! Let us pray for more of HIS grace, the grace to realize HIS grace - so that the enemy cannot defeat us by pride.