Pride – Hindrance to Growth

Proverbs 6: 17 “a proud look…” _(NKJV). The book of Proverbs puts pride ahead of murder. It’s not that murder is less severe it’s just than on God’s top ten list of things that he hates, pride is number one. Proverbs 8:13 “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate” _

So, God hates the sin of pride. He calls it evil. He does not hate the prideful person – For instance you can have pride in your Christian faith – Paul echo it to the Corinthians in 1 Cor1:31 and 2 Cor 10:17 that we should boast in the Lord. You can be proud of your communities (I am from …._._ _but we need to drop everything that is contrary to the word of God) or the football club you support. There are some people who have pride in a club even though the club might not have won any silverware for years or the club might not have won anything since they have been established.

But he hates the pride in the person. So what is pride?

What is pride? Pride means

• _t_o_ _a_c_t_ _a_r_r_o_g_a_n_t_l_y_ _
• _a_ _h_i_g_h_ _o_p_i_n_i_o_n_ _o_f_ _o_n_e_s_ _w_o_r_t_h_ _
• _Self-importance. Quote: "Pride, the idolatrous worship of self, is the national religion of hell."
• _P_o_m_p_o_s_i_t_y_,_ _s_n_o_b_b_i_s_h_n_e_s_s_ _

Pride promotes self-sufficiency rather than God-sufficiency. Attitudes like, “I can do it myself, I do not need anyone else” _is common with prideful people. Another attitude is I want it my way. Our culture screams this at us all the time – Where I am from this is how we do it. Unfortunately, our self-centered society influences us more than we think. Most sin has its roots in pride. Argumentative, lying, cheating

Pride is the undoing of the Christians faith. It most often breeds overconfidence in our lives while preventing us from doing the one thing we should be…calling out for our Savior. Let’s look at Mark 2: 15 – 1_6_._ _Look at what Jesus said in Mark 2:17 *“*It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” _

We all know people that by their actions we would nominate them as prideful people. But let us be careful because pride shows up even in the lives of every person sometimes without us even recognizing it.

As a matter of fact there are not a lot of sins out there that we don’t attribute to pride.

• _For example, when one cheats what he is saying is I can’t get caught. This is o.k., it serves my need.

• _For instance, when a person lies what he/she is saying is I don’t want to tell the truth because I am afraid that I may look bad.

• _Another example, when a person commits adultery what they are doing is acting out of the mentality that they want what somebody else has and won’t stop until they have it.

Pride is very competitive by nature. Competitive in the sense that you’ll stop at nothing to make sure you are always on the winning side because you don’t want to look inferior.

When we allow pride to rule our lives, we tend to push Christ to the side…because, after all we aren’t sick – Mark 2: 17. As dangerous as it is, pride is also very difficult to spot. There are many areas in our lives in which pride can exploit.

Deacon Wale Ajayi.

Pride – Hindrance to Growth Deacon Wale Ajayi.