It’s reflection time for this week’s lessons of intentional living. God clearly had a theme in mind this week. If you didn’t catch it, I’ll just come right out and say it: Pride!
As the week began, I thought this week was going to be easy peasy. First of all, on Sunday, we didn’t have to work; we got to rest. That was cool. Monday, we didn’t have to be sad; we got to rejoice. That was fun!
Then Tuesday came, and God turned in a new direction.
I admit, I was a little taken aback. I personally didn’t want to travel this route. Truthfully, I prefer to play and praise rather than deal with pride.
Nevertheless, I committed to write about whatever God reveals to me each morning, so for five days God has led you and me down the path of pride.
True Story Ahead
Over the last 10 years, I’ve dealt with skin cancer. I remember the first spot I noticed. The spot just appeared on my right forearm. At first I thought it was just a bug bite because it itched. It was summer so that made sense to me. However, it didn’t go away.
It was about the size of a pencil eraser, pinkish, and flaky. Still, I didn’t really think much about it. I just watched it. But after three or 4 months of it not going away and still itching, I decided to go to the doctor to have it examined.
It was basal cell skin cancer. The doctor decided to examine my whole body, and he found two more spots: one on each leg. He presented some treatment options, but he strongly believed in surgical removal. I remember him saying, “Let’s just cut it out. That’s the safest, surest way of it not spreading.”
So, I had all three surgically removed.
Since then, I’ve visited my dermatologist annually to have the full-on body exams. (Some day, I’ll have to share about one of the visits. It’s extremely hysterical.)
I’ve also had several other spots removed since the first three.
All removals have caused scars, but I don’t have cancer. These scars are constant reminders of what could have happened had I not cut those spots out of me.
So it is with pride.
Spiritual Cancer
Pride is the most deadly sin and it can spread like cancer.
C.S. Lewis observed, “Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense” (Mere Christianity, p. 112).
I think God focused on symptoms of pride this week because He knows we need to notice these spots so that we can get them out of us, just like I’ve had to get those cancer spots surgically removed from my skin.
God does not want us to let pride take root because we run the risk of it growing deeper and spreading to other parts of our body.
However, let’s take note. Just like that first tiny pink and itchy spot on my arm didn’t alarm me much, I think we act the same way about some of forms of pride.
Just like there are different forms of cancer, we learned this week there are different forms of pride. Each form has different symptoms too. Here are some symptoms I learned about pride:
- Conceit primary symptom is an excessively high opinion of yourself. You know, being a snob and stuck up and being condescending to others.
- Faultfinding symptoms include being a nag and hypercritical of others, and picking at their flaws.
- Self-obsession has a lot of symptoms, but two big ones are self-demotion and self-promotion.
- Favoritism’s symptoms include kissing up, name dropping, and neglecting others. Their intention is all about benefitting yourself.
- Self-pity’s symptoms is feeling sorry for ourselves and throwing a big ole pity party.
If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, you are suffering from pride. It’s time to get rid of it because you are risking some major destruction in yourself, in your relationship with others and with God.
Thomas A. Tarrants, III, D.Min, Vice President of Ministry, C.S. Lewis Institute, notes that, “Pride can be summarized as an attitude of self-sufficiency, self-importance, and self-exaltation in relation to God. Toward others, it is an attitude of contempt and indifference.”
All cancer and all pride is not good. So how do we deal with it?
Cut Out Pride
The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Pride is sin.
Christ came that we may have life, not death.
Living with pride in any form is not leading to life, but leading to death. Pride is serious stuff.
We need to pay attention to the ways we are not so concerned about our pity parties or picking at others’ flaws. These are like basal cell skin cancer. Just because it doesn’t look dangerous, doesn’t means it can’t turn into something serious and spread like crazy.
I don’t know about you, but I hate cancer. I’ve seen what it does to people. People I love have died because of cancer.
Guess what? God hates pride.
“I hate pride and arrogance” (Proverbs 8:13, NIV).
Remember there are seven things the Lord hates and pride is at the top of list (Proverbs 6:16-19).
Pride does not come God, but from this sinful world.
“For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world” (1 John 2:16, NIV).
Let’s cut out the pride that we’ve allowed in our lives.
Let’s refrain from all forms of pride. Don’t let it take root in you. Think of them as cancer. I bet you’ll think differently the next time you sulk, think you’re too good, or get annoyed you have to do the dishes when everyone else is watching TV.
Let’s be very intentional to embrace humility and gratefulness.
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