Don’t let Pride Destroy Your Relationship With God

Many of the Jews did not accept Christ as savior because of their pride, As Romans 10:1-4 explains.  “Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.  For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.  For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.  For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”    Many people today do not get saved because they are too proud to admit they are sinners.

Unfortunately, even many who get saved still have large amounts of pride and are unwilling to recognize they are just as sinful as any criminal.  The wages of sin is death, whether one is a murderer or just told “a little white lie.”   Jesus had to give his life on the cross to pay for either sin.  While we can never repay him, we can at least show our appreciation for his sacrifice, as Paul describes in Romans 12:1-2.  “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.   And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” 

By submitting ourselves completely to Christ and allowing him to change our attitudes and ways of thinking, we demonstrate what is acceptable and pleasing to God.  When we think we can serve him with our own abilities, we ignore our own sinful nature and begin to think we are better than others and that they need to be like us.  Romans 12:3 warns, “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.”  We need to get over our pride and realize that as Jesus said in John 15:5, “…for without me ye can do nothing.”  As Isaiah 64:6 tells us, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags;”  Even the things we are proudest of are worthless to God. 

The Apostle Paul started a great many churches, and opened a number of countries to the gospel.  He also wrote most of the New Testament, had also experienced extreme persecution, as described in I Corinthians 11.   In spite of all he had been through, In Philippians 3:12-14, He said, “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.  Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

Paul had no sense that he was greater than others because of his attainments, or that he could serve God in his own power.  Instead, he focused on following Christ day by day in the belief that by sticking to the basics he would accomplish what God intended.  It doesn’t matter how many special strategies and plays a basketball team knows, if they can’t dribble, pass and shoot the ball, they will not win, and it doesn’t matter how many games they have won in the past.    In the same way if we do not practice the basics, we cannot accomplish God’s purpose, regardless of past successes or failures. 

Because he understood this, in Phillippians 3:15-16, Paul said, “Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.  Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.”   We need to forget about how good we are or what we have done in the past and focus on doing those basic things we learned from Christ today. 

Just as basketball player who thinks he knows how to win without listening to the coach can cause the team to lose, a Christian who thinks he knows how to accomplish God’s work can interfere with God’s plan.  Philippians 3:17-19 warns, “Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample.  (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.)”  Their focus on earthly things makes them literally God’s enemies, regardless how much they may be held up as Christian leaders.  James 4:4 warns, “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”  If people put man’s ideas ahead of God’s word they are helping Satan’s team, even when they purport to be Christians.