“God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (I Peter 5:5)
You and I resist the proud, too, don’t we? The braggart who takes all the credit for work the whole team accomplished is deserting his friends, turning them into enemies and setting himself up as a target for their animosity.
Not very smart.
The next time he seeks our help or invites us to join his team, we think hard about accepting. We know how he works and it’s not good. We resist him.
Pride looks good on no one, least of all followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in particular ministers of the Gospel. Pride is one adornment we should all reject.
I wish I could stand before you this morning and say all the Lord’s people have this down pat, that pride (or egotism, however we want to say it) is something we do not have to struggle with. But the evidence to the contrary is all around us. Christians sometime are the world’s worst prigs, pharisees, egomaniacs. And some preachers are the chief offenders.
Lord, help your people.
Humility, let us say, means not to think down on yourself, to put yourself down, to crawl and cower and, in the memorable words of Mephibosheth in 2 Samuel 9:8, refer to yourself as a dead dog.