"But he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." - Matthew 23:11-12
As humans who were born with the sinful nature, we all desire to become great and exalted. We all compete with each other in a race to the top, thinking that if we are better, smarter, richer and more influential than others then we are in a good place.
Wrong. We aren't.
Pride as a Broken Throne
Pride is a very deceitful master, one who promises lofty heights. Many who are proud look down on others whom they think are less than them:
- The proud boss who can't treat his subordinates with respect simply because he thinks he's above them;
- The rich man who flaunts his riches and disregards the woes of the poor and needy;
- The religious leader who is proud of how big his church is and starts to look down on other pastors with smaller flocks;
And so much more.
Friends, pride is a very cunning liar. Those people I mentioned just now? Maybe we're just like them:
- The quiet employee who, despite being silent, starts to undermine the boss and steal his co-workers' loyalty because "I'm better than that employer."
- The poor man who doesn't accept help or try to improve his situation;
- The simple churchgoer who proudly says in his heart, "I'm not like that other person in the pew. I'm better than him."
Did you see yourself there? If you did, I hope you wouldn't be proud enough to deny it. We've all been proud sometime somewhere and God knows it. He sees that the throne we chose to sit on is broken and will fall at any moment:
"Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." (Proverbs 16:18)
No Need to Prove Anything
Friends, I hope to share this simple truth with you: pride and haughtiness isn't the way to go if we want to be great, if we want to reach great heights. Being humble is. 1 Peter 5:6-7 tells us,
"Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you."
God knows what we need, and He cares for us. We don't have to act high and mighty. We don't have to fake it. We don't have to compare ourselves to others and strive to be better than them.
We can simply humble ourselves and throw ourselves into God's care. We can simply focus on living a life that's pleasing to the Lord. We can simply throw away our insecurities because in God we're significant and secure.
We have no need to prove anything to God. He sees us anyway. Why not be humble and put our dependence on Him?
Thankfully, if we are born again in Christ, the sinful nature we were originally born into is replaced with God's nature. We can live in communion with God, and that's what matters.
