Be clothed with humility, for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:5-7
For the most part, pride is the opposite of wisdom. Wisdom and humility are often connected in the Bible and this is no coincidence. The reason: Pride leaves us vulnerable to just about every other root sin. Pride both drives us to sin and leaves us addicted. Pride destroys us. Here’s why:
Pride produces a self-righteousness, hypocritical spirit:
When we’re proud, we elevate our status in our own eyes. This makes us repugnant to the people around us (unless they’re playing along for what they can get out of it). Worse yet, pride has no room for the mercy of God. When we think we’re better (holier, closer to God) than everyone else, we’re incapable of not finding fault with others—while being blind to our own faults and weaknesses. We become slaves to our own pride. It’s a compulsion.
The Pharisees’ pride blinded them to their own sin and far worse, it blinded them to God’s mercy. It drove them to be callous and brutal toward others when they knew that loving their neighbor as themselves was God’s requirement. Jesus said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness” (Mat 23:27). The vicious cycle here was that pride left them defenseless to sinful temptations like hate, and then they had to cover their sin to protect their pride. They were trapped—prisoners of their own egos.
Pride naturally leads to rebellion:
Rebellion is the reflex response of pride in our hearts. Rebellion says, “I know better than God,” when we don’t. Often prideful rebellion blinds us to what is in our own self-interest. But even when we can see what would be best for us, a rebellious heart prevents us from doing it.
One of the best-known persons who was rescued from this is the prodigal son. In foolishness he pursued a rebellious life until the day he “came to his senses”. That was a hard lesson. For the rest of us, we could learn his lesson by humbling ourselves before God and seeking His wisdom.
Pride naturally leads to fear:
Pride is at the root of mistrust and paranoia. Wisdom humbly rests in God’s absolute care. Fear not only reveals our lack of trust in God and others He’s put in our lives, but it forces us into foolish self-reliance. We fear because we lack faith in Jesus, His power and His love. That’s not wisdom. But what is truly foolish is that, lacking faith in God, we have only ourselves left to trust, which sometimes leads us to human surrogates who we place our trust in—and these surrogates (peers, institutions—even Christian institutions, charlatans) don’t have our best interests at heart and we get taken advantage of. Either way, we’ve lost.
King Saul is a great biblical example of prideful fear. He was raised up by God, but came to trust utter nonsense because he wouldn’t humbly rest in God’s promised care. It ruined his life and the lives of everyone he cared about.
More on this next time…