It’s All About ME

In June of this year, we “celebrated” Pride Month, which includes Pride Day, in which man’s opposition to God’s purpose for and rule over His creation and particularly His design and order for human flourishing and our individual happiness in Him, is openly flaunted with apparent impunity and the approval of much of our God-ignoring society.

This should not surprise us as such prideful opposition, with its corresponding celebration of human autonomy (self-rule), has been the norm since the serpent (the devil) promised Adam and Eve that they could be like God, having the right, freedom and wisdom to determine for themselves right and wrong, good and evil, pursuing their own individual happiness on their own terms, accountable to no one, just like God (Genesis 3:1-6).  And all of mankind has run with this lie ever since, much to our demise and ultimate destruction both individually and as a race (Romans 1:25) (Proverbs 14:12) (Proverbs 16:18). (If you have any doubts regarding this, go and see the movie Oppenheimer.)

Pride is defined Biblically as the idolatry of self.  We are at the center of our lives in place of God, inwardly focused with life being all about us (Proverbs 21:2) (Judges 21:25). It is essentially the exaltation of the unholy trinity, me, myself and I.   Pride has at its core the desire to control and use all things for self, including other people and even God.  Self-rule, self-sufficiency, self-reliance, self-confidence, self-expression, self-esteem, self-exaltation, self-gratification, self-glorification, are seen in our present world as virtues to be pursued, even celebrated.

This is why Jesus calls those who would be saved by His grace from God’s judgment on our prideful sin, to deny self and live for Him (Matthew 16:24-26) (2 Corinthians 5:14-15). God’s call to repentance is essentially a call to turn from a self-centered life to a God/Christ centered life (Acts 17:30).

Pride is best illustrated in the words of the one in whom mankind, beginning with Adam, has joined in his rebellion against God, namely the fallen angel Lucifer, who is frequently referred to in the Bible as Satan or the devil.  Isaiah 14:12-15 reveals Lucifer’s prideful heart attitude toward God which brought about his fall from his lofty position as anointed cherub; “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’  Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit.”

We were created by God and for God – specifically for the glory of God, that the infinite perfections of His majestic being would be known, seen, displayed, proclaimed, enjoyed and rejoiced in by men and women who would image His glory in both the totality of our beings and in how we related to God and man (Revelation 4:11) (Isaiah 43:7).  We were made such that our greatest joy, our greatest pleasure, our greatest satisfaction, our ultimate and eternal significance would be found in knowing, loving and being loved by God, not as divine equals, but beloved children under His fatherly authority.  We were graciously given dominion over all of His good and glorious creation, to rule, protect, enhance and enjoy it and one another, as we would each image unique aspects of His glory in our persons and personality. No greater dignity/honor could be given among His creation (Genesis 1:26-31) (Psalm 8:3-9).

Yet, instead of being overwhelmingly happy, eternally grateful children, seeking to please, honor, obey and glorify God in our enjoyment of Him and all of His gifts, we became and now are by nature, rebels, children of disobedience, joining Satan in his prideful rejection of God’s purpose for and rule over our lives, subject to no one and nothing but our own determination of right and wrong, good and evil, pridefully using the gracious gifts and talents God has placed in us as His image bearers for our glory and not His (Ephesians 2:2-3) (Ecclesiastes 7:29) (Luke 12:16-21).

In our pride we see God as small, insignificant, irrelevant and inconsequential to our lives, robbing Him of His glory, honor and praise.  Puritan writer Thomas Watson states that “Pride seeks to ungod God”.  St. Augustine referred to pride as the “heart of all sin” and Jonathan Edwards calls it “the worst viper in our heart.”

Thus, it should be of no surprise that God hates and punishes pride and the sin it produces, severely.   In Proverbs 6:16-19 we have a short list of the things God hates, that He finds abominable, and a haughty or prideful look tops the list.  In Proverbs 16:5 we read, Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; though they join forces, none will go unpunished.

 And what is God’s instinctive response to man’s pride?  He laughs! – not out of joy and delight, but derisively, with contempt and scorn (Psalm 2:1-4).  And He addresses it in His judgement and wrath, as well as in His mercy and grace, both of which have the goal of destroying man’s pride once and for all eternity and exalting His glory in the Son, our Lord Jesus (Psalm 2:5-12).

God willing (and enabling), I will in upcoming posts look at God’s use of both means in His destruction of pride, and how they are being manifested for the glory of God in the midst of this present evil (prideful) world (Galatians 1:4).

Grace and Peace ×