C. PRIDE: THE ESSENCE OF SIN
1. Symptoms Of Pride.
The subtle symptoms of pride are quite easy to spot once you know what they are. Here are two or three indicators:
a. “I’m More Important.”
Thinking certain people or jobs are “beneath your dignity” or thinking you are more important than others because you have a place of leadership.
b. “I Want To Be Served.”
Accepting special honor as a leader and being served by others rather than devoting yourself to serving them.
c. I’m The Best.”
Paul warns us against “thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to think” (Rom 12:3). Pride is beginning to dominate us if we esteem ourselves more highly than we ought.
These and other similar traits warn us that we have been poisoned by that subtle sin, pride.
God hates pride because it is the essence of sin. Satan fell because of pride. “Your heart was filled with pride because of all your beauty… Therefore I have cast you down…”(Eze 28:17).
Eve fell because of Satan’s appeal to her pride, “…ye shall be as Elohim [God]…” (Gen 3:5). Pride brings our certain down fall. “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov 16:18).
2. Pride Is Dangerous
Pride is dangerous because it is subtle. Pride is like a weed among the crops: It will grow and take over if we don’t take positive action to prevent it.
You may begin as a humble leader and presume that you have mastered humility. When you are “proud of” your humility, you do not have any humility.
Pride is a destroyer.
This is why it is God’s will for a novice to take on responsibility a little bit at a time so he can grow into enlarged responsibility without the danger of being destroyed by pride. “An overseer must not be one who is newly saved [a novice], lest he become conceited and fall into the same condemnation incurred by the devil” (1 Tim 3:2,6 pph).