How To Deal With Pride

Most people do not know where I am based.

I spoke to someone concerning my NGO valentine “Purity walk” yesterday and he said he thought I was in Lagos. I laughed. I have not been in Lagos since November. I was there briefly for TWTW Meet in December and disappeared again.

Oh well, I am currently in Delta State (my family is based here) but then again I will be leaving this weekend for Port-harcourt for ‘Prayers for your future husband” book launch and ladies event and it seems like I am to be a nomad for Jesus and that’s okay.

From December till now that I have been home, I can be said to be in the “school of the Spirit”.

I was meditating on my stay and I smiled as I saw that once again, God used this season to prune me and build character in me. I have been in the school of love, with my mom as my love lesson. But that’s a story for another day.

 

Yesterday God opened my eyes to see that another thing He wanted to prune me of was PRIDE.

Me?
Proud?

Uhm, yes.

We had Bible study at Church yesterday and God was just seriously dealing with me.

He showed me that my reluctance to obey my mom when she sends me on an errand is pride.

You see, my mom sends the craziest of messages (which mom doesn’t?).
Lock the gate for me (when she just walked through it), bring that bucket for me, bring the wrapper for me (when she just came in from there, lol). Etc.

I will obey but grumble in my heart, something like: “shebi if I am not here, you for nor see me to send this kind of message or is it because I am at home *******”
Anyway God totally came at my heart yesterday and showed me it was PRIDE talking through me.

Why do I think that I am bigger than such messages?
What am I inadvertently saying by grumbling “shey if I wasn’t home you won’t send me this and that?”
Am I saying that if I was a “bigger girl” then I am not supposed to be errands like that?

God said it’s PRIDE and He used Jesus to teach me somethings.

 

For everyone struggling with pride, let’s go into the Word shall we?

We will take the passage in Philippians 2 step by step.

 

Php 2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

 

I read the above and I was thinking: “self ambition and vain conceit is pride?”

But of course yes.
Selfish ambition is “me, me and me”.
It is all about me and I am elevated beyond the next person.

The Bible says instead:

Php 2:4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

 

Where does pride get it’s bearing?
In our relationship with each other.

In other words, you will know if you are proud not by your opinion of yourself but by your conduct with other people.
People are the means by which God shows you your heart in this pride issue; and not just by your conduct but also by your heart condition.

Maybe you like me even obey and act like you should but in your heart the pride still stays.

 

Php 2:5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Php 2:6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
Php 2:7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
Php 2:8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross!

 

Now, Jesus was “all that” but did not consider his being ‘all that” to be something.
And now the Bible says that we should have that same mindset and attitude just like Jesus had/has.

How?

Don’t have an unhealthily high opinion of yourself.

 

What do I mean by this?
How do we have an unhealthily high opinion of ourselves?
It occurs even in subtle ways.
I can speak better than she can…
I can write better than she can..
I can preach that message better than she can.. I can light up this place with my charisma..

You probably can but guess what? Your thought that you can do that better than anyone – in God’s sight – already disqualifies you from even doing half of what they did.
God cannot use such a heart.
That means if He uses you, you will take all the glory and that is not allowed in the kingdom.

Yes you may be all that, but humility posits that you do not regard your “all that” as something. You lay it all down.

 

Now note this:
but made himself nothing…
Note who made Himself nothing?
Jesus.
Himself.

Who humbles you?
You.
Yourself.

It is not God’s duty to humble you; God will show you your heart when you ask Him to show your flaws but who is to humble themselves when He tells you you are proud?

YOU DO IT.

How?
By asking for help. Grace. Willingness to be pruned and worked on.

 

Php 2:9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
Php 2:10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
Php 2:11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Now, in human understanding, humility always seems like a demotion at first.

 

My heart for example would say; why is my mom sending me such degrading errands, doesn’t she know that I am this and that? What if I had something important doing and had to be out-of-town? Is it because she is seeing me here? Etc. Etc.

I do not know your situation but you may say: why should I say I am sorry, why should I greet them first, why should I go for their event, they didn’t even invite me personally (pride manifests itself in some pretty petty ways).

 

It seems like you are demoting yourself but scroll up to that passage again and note the “THEREFORE”.

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,….

There is always a “therefore” after you humble yourself.

After we humble ourselves, there is always a “therefore”.

Remember God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. That grace He gives to the humble is the “therefore” but to get to the “therefore” depends on you.

Would you humble yourself?

Jesus had to humble Himself.
Maybe it didn’t come easily to Him. Do you think that it did?

Read the Bible and see God’s boasting about who He is.

 

“Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said:
Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.
Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone– while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?
Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’?”
-Job 38:1-11, NIV

 

Read further down Job and you will just be awed at God’s power, splendour and majesty.

So was it easy for this same God to humble Himself and be born like a man and die a criminal’s death? For people who didn’t even appreciate what He did for them?

I do not think that it was easy.

HE HAD TO HUMBLE HIMSELF TO DO IT.

 

What am I saying?

It would also not be easy for us to humble ourselves.

Taking into cognizance our “all that” (which we aren’t anyway, the One who was all that indeed say it as nothing so who are we?)

But we must humble ourselves.

To deal with pride effectively, humility has to be something we consciously strive to do.

It wont come easy to you, you have to determine to go the opposite way when pride comes calling either in your heart or in your outward conduct.

I know that it isn’t easy and after my conviction from God and this study, I simply asked God and I want you all to pray this with me today:

“Lord please help me.
My flesh rears its head up so strongly.
Help me to keep myself humble under your mighty hand. Help me to remain fixed in you. Give me grace to keep myself humble. Holy Spirit pull me back when my flesh is going haywire.Jesus help me to have the same mind of character and humility that you have in Jesus name, amen.

 

God works with sincere hearts.
If you were sincere with that prayer, obey when the Spirit tugs on you to be humble both in heart and conduct.
Little by little humility will grow to become a way of life with you.

God help us all.

 

Till our next online Bible study,
Love,
Frances

 

PS: Have any tips for overcoming pride?

Share with us in the comment section below. It’s a Bible study after all, it has to be interactive 🙂

 

 

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