pride Archives — truthmission.net

Humility Month: Part 2–God is God, and You are Not

Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre: Thus says the Lord God:

Your heart has grown proud,
and thus you say, “I am a god;
I sit on a godly throne
in the heart of the seas.”
But in reality you are a man, and not a god,
even though you compare your mind
with that of a god.
Are you as wise as Daniel?
Is no secret hidden from you?
By your wisdom and your intelligence,
you have amassed great wealth for yourself.
You have deposited gold and silver
into your treasuries.
Because of your skill in trading,
your wealth has greatly increased;
and as a result of your riches,
your heart is filled with arrogant pride.

Therefore, thus says the Lord God:

Because you consider your wisdom
to be equal to that of God,
I will bring foreigners against you,
the most barbarous of all the nations.
They will draw their swords
against the beauty of your wisdom
and defile your splendor.
They will hurl you down to the pit,
and you will die a violent death
in the heart of the seas.
Will you then still say, “I am a god,”
when your murderers confront you?
No, you are a man, not a god,
in the hands of those about to slay you.
You will die the death of the uncircumcised
at the hands of foreigners.

I have spoken, declares the Lord God.
(Ezekiel 28:2-10 NCB)

As our guest author Karen Pennington noted in part 1 of this series, “Simply put, pride involves the idolatry of placing ourselves in front of God, in any way, or for any reason.”

In front of God is bad enough. However, in the passage above, the prince of Tyre was making himself EQUAL to God. Definitely a career-limiting move on his part.

The word “pride” in verse five above is accompanied by the word “arrogant. ” These two words frequently hang out together. It is never a good thing when they do.

Arrogance is a rejection of wisdom. It results from a person elevating incomplete knowledge to a level it does not warrant.

Everyone knows a lot about a few things and a little about many things. A person blinded by arrogance does not make the distinction between knowing a lot and knowing a little.

Pride, then, is arrogance in action. This is when a person professes that their incomplete knowledge is equal or superior to Wisdom and Truth. When left unchecked, this pride can proliferate into a god complex, whereby a person esteems his own intelligence to be unlimited.

This is asking for trouble.

Only God is God

Now it´s not likely that you or I will ever find ourselves ruling a city-state in the Middle East, but pride can creep into the life of anyone in any situation. It rears its head not just when you´re on top, but even when you are at rock bottom. Consider the story of Job.

In a single day, Job lost all his children, all his property, and all of his servants. Everything but his wife and his life. Then, to make matters worse, his entire body was covered with painful sores. Yet, he never sacrificed his faith or integrity.

Even so, there´s only so much a man can take, even a righteous man like Job. He goes off on a six-chapter rant, justifying himself and complaining why he doesn’t deserve his circumstances. Then God answers, with seventy-two verses of sarcastic questions, ending with this:

“Do you still want to argue with the Almighty? Or will you yield? Do you—God’s critic—have the answers?” (Job 40:2 TLB)

After a bit more chastening, Job responds:

“You said, ‘Listen and I will speak! Let me put the questions to you! See if you can answer them!’

“But now I say, ‘I had heard about you before, but now I have seen you, and I loathe myself and repent in dust and ashes.’” (Job 42:4-6 TLB)

Job exchanged his unintentional pride for intentional humility. As a result, God restored to him double what he had lost, and he lived to a ripe old age to enjoy it.

Strength in Surrender

So as we can see, pride makes us enemies of God, but humility sets things right again. By surrendering our pride, we open up Blessing Blvd. to traffic. God hears our prayers and answers them according to His will.

This is what we need to remember when our circumstances go south. Because they will. In fact, if you take a look at the world around us, they already are.

It is so difficult to look at the chaos of our society and believe that God is in control. But He is. It is WE who aren’t. Because it´s not our job.

For only God is God.

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Humility Month: Part 1–Pride vs. Humility



In June, a certain percentage of the United States celebrates Pride Month.  Not all Americans are on board with this, which inevitably leads to accusations of homophobia from the participants.

Many would be surprised to learn, however, that the offense of Pride Month does not stem primaily from the celebration of deviant sexual practices, or even from the appropriation of the symbol of God's promise for their flag.  The most egregious transgression of Pride Month is the elevation of pride itself.

No fewer than 18 times here at Truth Mission we have identified pride as the mother of all sin. Since humility is the polar opposite of pride, we have decided to designate September as Humility Month.  Instead of railing against Pride Month and the people who celebrate it, we would humbly (see what I did there?) like to offer an alternative that might just yield a better result.

So to kick off Humility Month, we are going to do something we have never done before here at Truth Mission.  We are highlighting a guest author!

Today's very special guest is Karen Pennington, author of An Anointed Mess: Discovering the Daily Adventure of Grace as well as the new devotional 10 Healing Truths from God's Word. The following appeared on her blog, Daily Adventures in Grace, on June 12, 2022.

Pride vs. Humility–Finding the Best Package

“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but wisdom is with the humble.” (Proverbs 11:2 NRSV)

I usually like package deals. It can often mean that I get a greater value, more bang for my buck. However, some packages deals just aren’t worth it.

There have been times when I thought I really wanted something but ended up giving up on it, because of all of the unneeded extra baggage and expenses that comes along with it. I’ve lost count of the memberships, activities, and even some relationships I have had to cut out of my life, because they either cost too much or came with an extra generous dose of pain or heartache. Those are the package deals I would choose to opt out of.

One of the worst possible combinations I can think of is pride and shame. It almost seems counter-intuitive that the two would come together, especially since those of us who have struggled with pride in some form (which is all of us) have sought to be lifted to higher ground, not brought low. But according to the words of Proverbs 11:2, those who exhibit pride as a means to honor get the exact opposite of what they are bargaining for.

That phrase “then comes” from this verse is not really implying that disgrace comes after pride- no delayed reaction there. It actually means that dishonor comes WITH pride. In other words, pride and shame are a package deal. So the moment we try to set ourselves on a self-made pedestal, we set a magnifying glass on our own inadequacy without Christ.

This very closely resembles the words of Christ that have come to be known as “The Great Reversal”:

“All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Matthew 23:12 NRSV)

So what exactly is pride? Simply put, pride involves the idolatry of placing ourselves in front of God, in any way, or for any reason. It appears in many forms: workaholism, unforgiveness, gossip, criticism, or any number of thoughts, words, or actions that reflect the inner lie that somehow our way is more important than God’s. Pride can often masquerade as good things, like good deeds, felt convictions or (false) humility (because that buys into the lie that somehow our understanding of ourselves is more true than what God says about us).

The thing is, we ARE good, and valuable, and priceless. So there’s no need to falsely build ourselves up. Why not just lean into God?

True humility means we surrender our attempts to self-justify and self-promote, which in reality have only ever brought misunderstanding and pain. In return, we receive the eyes of grace, which allow us to define ourselves and the world around us through the lens of God’s infinite love.

Trust me, this is a much better package deal.

(We will continue celebrating Humility Month with Part 2: God is God and You are Not)

Whatever We Ask: Part 4–(Un)answered Prayers

All prayers are answered. Sometimes the answer is, “No.”—Bono

One of the pitfalls of the Christian life is how easy it is to backslide from “highly favored child of God” to “spoiled brat.”

We have seasons of life where everything seems to be going our way, and we give God the glory for that. But then life throws us a curveball, and the whining starts.

“Why isn’t God answering my prayer? He said He’d give me anything I ask for. Haven’t I been ‘doing it right’?”

The truth is that God does answer prayer, but not always in the way that we expect.

Sometimes we get excited and run up ahead when He needs us to hold back and notice something He wants to show us. Sometimes selfishness creeps in and the “desires of our hearts” become more like the cravings of our appetites. And sometimes, we simply don’t recognize the answer for what it is when it comes.

God is not a vending machine or an ATM. We exist to serve Him, not the other way around. For this reason, the point of prayer isn’t primarily to address our own needs. Jesus explained it this way:

Don’t worry and say, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ The people who don’t know God keep trying to get these things, and your Father in heaven knows you need them. Seek first God’s kingdom and what God wants. Then all your other needs will be met as well. (Matthew 6:31-33 NCV)

Prayer is your Out box. When you put something in your Out box at work, do you pull it back and put it in your In box again? No, you put it in the Out box because you are finished with it.

Whatever it is that you are praying for, God has a plan for it. It may not be the plan you would have scripted for yourself, but think for a minute. Who’s smarter, you or God? Don’t you think it might be possible that Father knows best?

There’s more to it than that though. Logic alone will tell you that God is bigger, more powerful and more able to meet your needs. The question is, “Do you TRUST Him to do that?” Do you believe that He not only knows what’s best for you, but that He WANTS what’s best for you?

How you answer that question will determine how you respond to His answers. If you really believe that God’s way will lead to a better result than anything you could have come up with, then it becomes a lot easier to roll with the changes when they do come.

(But what happens if we don’t? Come back for Part 5—Unstable)

DN=: Part 16–Hypocrisy

I find it interesting that the Greek origin of the word “hypocrisy” comes from the theatre. You may know that ancient Greek plays were performed by actors wearing masks. These actors were called hypocrites, not because of any character deficiency, but because they were literally “pretending under a mask.”

This meaning makes sense when you think about people whom you may have considered guilty of hypocrisy. What they are doing is showing the world one face, their “mask,” while pretending to be something they are not. One of these masks is self-righteousness.

Why do you see the splinter in your brother’s eye but not notice the log in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ when you have the log in your own eye? You hypocrite! First, take the log out of your own eye; then you will see clearly, so that you can remove the splinter from your brother’s eye! (Matthew 7:3-5 CJB)

Jesus’ warning against hypocrisy from the Sermon on the Mount is one of the most humbling passages in scripture. However, as is so often the case when people use the Bible as a defense mechanism, many of us want to put a period where God put a comma (or in the case of the translation used here, a semicolon).

Notice that Jesus did NOT say, “You hypocrite! First, take the log out of your own eye” PERIOD! There is a “then” after the “first” and a “so that” after the “then.” The purpose of taking the log out of your own eye is to clear your vision. And the purpose of clear vision is to successfully complete the task of helping get the splinter out of your brother’s eye.

Jesus is clear in noting that the fault does not lie with the person giving correction, but with the spirit in which it is given, namely that people with issues of their own ought to address those before pointing out someone else’s.

Nowhere in the passage above does it say that it is OK to have a splinter in your eye. It also does not state that one must be perfect to remove a splinter. After all, no human was ever perfect besides Jesus. And since He is clearly advocating the removal of splinters from eyes by people who are less than perfect, it should be equally clear that imperfect people, under the right conditions, are qualified to remove eye splinters.

IMPERFECTION DN= HYPOCRISY

Have you ever tried to be perfect or maybe felt that you wouldn’t measure up if you were anything less than perfect? It’s stressful, isn’t it?

Many Christians fall into this performance trap. Sometimes we get the impression that in order to be worthy bearers of the name of Christ, we can’t slip up, lest the onlooking world accuse us of hypocrisy.

I would like to do my part in helping break this cycle by saying that it’s actually a good thing for the world to see us fail. It doesn’t seem so at first, when we are enduring the taunting, the ridiculing and the finger pointing, but when the dust settles, we have a unique opportunity.

We have the chance to publicly demonstrate personal responsibility by swallowing our pride and owning our fail as well as the consequences thereof.

In other words, we can take off our masks and show the world what’s underneath.

He turned now to his disciples and warned them, “More than anything else, beware of these Pharisees and the way they pretend to be good when they aren’t. But such hypocrisy cannot be hidden forever. (Luke 12:1b TLB)

The few of you who have stuck with me during the LONG pauses between posts in this series may have wondered what the delay was all about.

I knew that I was going to be closing out my series exposing the hypocrisy of the “=” movement by talking about hypocrisy itself and how those who bring that charge the most strenuously seem to be the guiltiest of it themselves.

Then I looked in the mirror one day and saw the log. So I’ve been spending the past several weeks trying to figure out what to do with this log in my eye.

You see, the thing is, I’m a wanderer. I guess we all are, because we are all susceptible to sin in general and the sin of pride in particular, but I’ve been doing quite a bit of wandering lately. I can totally relate to what Paul was feeling when he wrote this to the Romans:

I don’t understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I can’t. I do what I don’t want to—what I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience proves that I agree with these laws I am breaking. But I can’t help myself because I’m no longer doing it. It is sin inside me that is stronger than I am that makes me do these evil things.

I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can’t make myself do right. I want to but I can’t. When I want to do good, I don’t; and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. Now if I am doing what I don’t want to, it is plain where the trouble is: sin still has me in its evil grasp.

It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love to do God’s will so far as my new nature is concerned; but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. In my mind, I want to be God’s willing servant, but instead I find myself still enslaved to sin.

So you see how it is: my new life tells me to do right, but the old nature that is still inside me loves to sin. Oh, what a terrible predicament I’m in! Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature? (Romans 7:15-25 TLB)

I think at some level I just knew that I wouldn’t be able to finish this without dislodging my log.

But then I considered the question that ends the passage above. Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature? Well, duh. Jesus already did. I’m still working on my wood-vision, but at least I’m aware of it. The fact that I want the log out of my eye is the evidence that it is possible. Especially when I consider the alternative:

If anyone sins deliberately by rejecting the Savior after knowing the truth of forgiveness, this sin is not covered by Christ’s death; there is no way to get rid of it. There will be nothing to look forward to but the terrible punishment of God’s awful anger, which will consume all his enemies. (Hebrews 10:26-27 TLB)

The unfortunate fact that I am prone to wander from the Truth does not make the Truth any less true. Therefore, it is not hypocrisy for an imperfect messenger to deliver a perfect message to someone that would benefit from it.

For this reason, I will press on, and continue doing what I have been called to do.

Because falling down DN= falling away.

DN=: Part 14–Equal Opportunity

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . .

(Declaration of Independence)

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

(George Orwell—Animal Farm)

“Equal opportunity” is another way of saying that everyone has the same chance to succeed or fail.

However, instead of designating an equal chance at success or failure, “equal opportunity” has become synonymous in our culture with entitlement. Success is now assumed, and if a person does not succeed, well then that person has been denied “equal opportunity.”

But if equal opportunity in the true sense means the same as fair play and justice, then it would make sense that everyone already HAS equal opportunity. If justice is universal, then so is opportunity.

Oh, but wait a minute. Justice also means getting what we deserve. So we have equal opportunity to make our own choices, but we also have equal responsibility to own the consequences of those choices. Sometimes, those consequences are not favorable.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY DN= EQUAL RESULTS

So it should be plain by now that the “=”movement is not really about equal opportunity at all. What the “=” community is really after is a life and a world that is free from consequences.

The irony is that if the “=” community actually got what it wanted, then it would be UN-equal, since having freedom from consequences would set it apart from the justice that everyone else would receive from making the wrong choice.

“=” DN= EQUAL

Let me pause for a moment here, because I know a lot of you are wondering: “Why does he keep saying ‘the “=” community,’ when he’s obviously talking about the LGBT community?”

The answer is that gay marriage isn’t the real issue here. Sure, the media and our politicians would like to make it the issue, but in the big picture, it all comes back to a problem that plagues everyone, gay or straight—self-righteousness.

Paul makes it clear in his letter to the Romans that homosexuality is not the disease, but merely one of many symptoms:

What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life.

Worse followed. Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either—women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another, women with women, men with men—all lust, no love. And then they paid for it, oh, how they paid for it—emptied of God and love, godless and loveless wretches.

Since they didn’t bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating. Look at them: mean-spirited, venomous, fork-tongued God-bashers. Bullies, swaggerers, insufferable windbags! They keep inventing new ways of wrecking lives. They ditch their parents when they get in the way. Stupid, slimy, cruel, cold-blooded. And it’s not as if they don’t know better. They know perfectly well they’re spitting in God’s face. And they don’t care—worse, they hand out prizes to those who do the worst things best! (Romans 1:21-22, 26-32 The Message)

Now that sounds awfully harsh, particularly in the Message paraphrase, but can you deny the reality of that in 21^st-century America?

One of the saddest things that I have yet seen is when churches water down or discard this message. It is not a church’s job to provide a safe space for sinners of any kind to come together and “be who they are.” A church’s function is to bring people together to find out who they are in Christ.

Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal with each other, whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a man or a woman. (Galatians 3:28 CEV)

That’s right. The Truth is that we all have an equal opportunity to be equal in Christ. We have always had it and always will.

Sounds simple enough, but ah, there’s that pride thing getting in the way again. The problem with this simple solution is that it involves surrendering your will, and it is not in our nature to want to do that.

So what is left then for those whose pride prevents them from humbling themselves before God and admitting their failure?

They find someone else to attack.

Christians.

Since there is no Truth or common sense in their argument, based as it is upon their own self-righteousness, then the only avenue left to them is to tear down Truthseekers in order to maintain their perception of superiority.

And since PC code words are their forte, they have come up with the ultimate man-made nonsense word.

(And for that, you’ll have to come back for Part 15)

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DN=: Part 13–Fair Play

“It’s not fair!”

Every child ever

Justice, as you’ll recall, is when we get what we deserve. It’s interesting, though, to note how abruptly our stance on justice and fair play adjusts depending upon which side of the justice we find ourselves.

We sure don’t mind dispensing justice; however, receiving it is a different story.

As in so many other situations, our pride is the problem. If we exalt ourselves to think that we are above justice, and that “the rules” don’t apply to us, then it would follow that we wouldn’t expect to partake in the natural consequences of breaking those rules either.

JUSTICE DN= GETTING YOUR WAY

So although justice is always fair, it only FEELS fair if we have a clear understanding of what it is that we truly deserve:

Adam sinned, and that sin brought death into the world. Now everyone has sinned, and so everyone must die. (Romans 5:12 CEV)

However. . .

The Lord is compassionate and merciful,
very patient, and full of faithful love.
God won’t always play the judge;
he won’t be angry forever.
He doesn’t deal with us according to our sin
or repay us according to our wrongdoing,
because as high as heaven is above the earth,
that’s how large God’s faithful love is for those who honor him.
As far as east is from west—
that’s how far God has removed our sin from us.
Like a parent feels compassion for their children—
that’s how the Lord feels compassion for those who honor him.
(Psalm 103: 8-13 CEB)

Did you catch the key phrase there? David repeated it to make sure that you would. Justice is universal, but God reserves grace for those who honor him.

Without this grace, the only thing left for us is justice. The universal natural consequence of our universal sinful nature is death. This is the ultimate Truth of our lives, and complete reliance on Jesus for our salvation is the only way out of it.

Obviously, many reject this Truth. Equally obvious is the fact that we all have a choice to accept it or reject it.

Nevertheless, for some reason the prevailing mentality in this country has become that one can do whatever one wishes, up to and including a complete rejection of universal Truth, and suffer no consequences whatsoever.

FAIR PLAY DN= ENTITLEMENT

We all have desires. However, a person who is ruled by pride will view the fulfillment of his or her desires as the primary goal. Those that are successful in fulfilling a few of these desires may quickly begin to regard this fulfillment as an entitlement.

Then, in their own minds, they will conceive a bogus sense of justice and fair play, in which they “deserve” to get whatever they want whenever they want, and anyone or anything that would deny them that is guilty of an injustice.

However:

Many people vie for special treatment from a ruler,
yet genuine justice proceeds from the Eternal. (Proverbs 29:26 VOICE)

Because God alone is righteous, and because God alone determines Truth, it is only by God’s authority that true justice can be dispensed.

The eternal, indisputable and universal justice that applies to all humanity is not only manifest in our rights, but also in our consequences.

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A majority of humans may get laws changed. A government skilled in social engineering may even be able to get the attitude of a nation changed. But NOTHING a government or its advocates can do will ever be able to change the natural consequences of a choice.

A government can grant or deny privileges. A government can mandate civil responsibilities. A government has the authority to set its own civil penalties for breaking its own rules and laws.

But a government will NEVER be capable of conferring rights upon any subset of the human race.

Yes, this even includes homosexuals.

(Yeah, I went there. Wait till you see where I go next in Part 14–Equal Opportunity)

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DN=: Part 11–Backwards

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana—The Life of Reason

All that is not eternal is eternally out of date.

C.S. Lewis–The Four Loves

Last July, we talked about three ways of learning. There is experience, or making your own mistakes and learning from them. Then there is wisdom, which is learning from someone else’s mistakes so as not to repeat them. And then there is common sense, which is collective wisdom that has taken root in a population.

Observing this progression, it is easy to see that common sense results from people building upon what has gone before. It is the sum of the mistakes and the corrections of previous generations. It would logically follow, then, that to employ common sense in one’s reasoning, one must look backwards to history.

Nevertheless, our culture inexplicably does not seem to value this type of reasoning anymore. The “progressive” ideology dictates that all things must change in the name of moving “forward.” Whether it was working well or not is immaterial.

But common sense dictates that if you have made a wrong turn, forward is not your best option. To get back on the right road, you’ll have to go backwards until you reach the spot where you made the wrong turn. THEN go forward.

Obviously, you can’t go forward and backwards at the same time. Therefore, by completely ignoring (or worse, attempting to modify) history, a “progressive” mentality completely nullifies any potential of employing common sense. This makes failure a virtual certainty.

The primary reason that Truth Mission exists is to declare war on this intellectual futility.

Truthseekers proclaim God and His Word as the source of all Truth, which is unchanging and applies equally to all people in all situations. Truth never fails, because God never fails.

Understanding this, it then becomes clear why Christians look to the Bible for answers when life poses difficult questions. The Bible has an example for nearly any situation in terms of which strategies work and which ones don’t. Because the Bible is the ultimate source of correction, it will always improve our situation if we heed that correction.

More importantly, however, because God’s Word is eternal and unchanging, the lessons it teaches will always have value, regardless of the circumstances of the world or our individual situations.

ETERNAL DN= OUT OF DATE

As we have already noted, one cannot go backwards and forward at the same time. Therefore, anyone obsessed with moving forward at all costs misses the opportunity for the course correction that only history and Truth can provide.

Since one with such a worldview only sees the Bible as a musty old book, and not God’s eternal Truth, the further “forward” they go, the smaller Truth becomes in their rearview mirror. Since they consider everything behind them “out-of-date,” then the Truth and all who proclaim it become, in their minds, “backwards.”

So forward they go, until inevitably, they find a tree in their path, yielding the all-too-predictable result. Busted face notwithstanding, their pride remains intact, since that was what led them forward in the first place.

In the absence of the common sense that has been left behind, this pride initiates the blame game by rationalizing: “I am superior to the backwards thinkers, yet I have a busted face. Those to whom I am superior do not have busted faces; therefore, it must be their fault that my face is busted. Indeed, they are likely the ones who planted this tree to prevent me from going forward. I should have the freedom to walk wherever I choose without having to worry about my face being busted!”

(So what’s the problem with freedom of choice? Come back for Part 12–Civil Liberties)