pride Archives - Latter Rain

True freedom. The freedom to enjoy life is such a lovely thing and it is truly tragic when someone goes through the sways of life but is never able to enjoy freedom in its entirety. God designed human beings to enjoy freedom. It is in your nature to be free and to pleasure in the benefits of liberty. That is why I am taking the time to dedicate an entire post to the topic of freedom to make you understand its nature and enjoy the freedom to live, so continue reading.

Captivity and Its Deceptive Borders

One can live a life of normality and still live in captivity. Captivity is sometimes not as obvious as it seems. It is not always a dirty dungeon, it can be one’s fears, strongholds, and more, which makes it very hard to identify. An example of this is a rich man reaping a six figure salary yet unable to enjoy relationships out of fear that someone will take his money.

Similarly, Jesus also told a story of a greedy man and exposed the vanity of greed.

Luke 12:20 World English Bible (WEB)
²⁰“But God said to him, ‘You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared—whose will they be?’

God reminded the greedy man when he died that his money will only stay with him so as long as he’s alive, but, as soon as he dies, he cannot enjoy that money. That man was a slave to his financial fortune.

Freedom to buy anything you want but to be enslaved by your love for money is not true freedom. True freedom as the Bible puts it, is to enjoy life and God’s gifts in the way which God knows is best for us.

And the border between captivity and freedom is very hard to pinpoint. Many have the freedom to eat anything their heart desires, but they are captive to their addiction to food. Others have the freedom to exercise like anything, yet, they remain captive to their obsession over public image.

I am not saying money, exercise, or tasty food is bad. What I am saying is that there’s a multitude of things which can enslave us as human beings and you just have to ask yourself, “Am I really free? Is there anything that enslaves me?”

Liberating the Captives

And if you know deep within your heart that you are a slave, reach out to God. Jesus offers you the promise of freedom. Freedom to enjoy your life in all its entirety.

Matthew 11:28 World English Bible (WEB)
²⁸“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.

Over 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ, being God, came in the flesh as a man and took the punishment for your sins along with the whips reserved to make you a slave, and He bought you freedom to live as children of God.

Three days after, He rose again from the dead and is now alive, forevermore. This is the gospel of freedom which the Bible is all about and I talk more about it in this post.

Luke 4:18 World English Bible (WEB)
¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to heal the broken hearted,
    to proclaim release to the captives,
    recovering of sight to the blind,
    to deliver those who are crushed,

Jesus said that He is here to proclaim release to the captives. When Jesus says that He has come to “proclaim release to the captives,” the Greek word used in the Gospel for the word, “release,” is “aphesis.”

Aphesis almost always translates as meaning forgiveness in the other verses mentioning it but in this case, God uses it to mean release or freedom from captivity.

Therefore, I believe freedom starts with forgiveness. And whether you’re struggling with addiction, pride, greed, or whatever else enslaves the human mind, you must first understand that when you turn to Jesus Christ, God forgives you.

Ephesians 1:7 World English Bible (WEB)
⁷in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,

Freedom to Live a Life With God

Therefore, God has purchased and redeemed you with His blood and has forgiven you as soon as you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. If you were a slave under the slave owner named, “Pride,” or “Greed,” or “Addiction,” Jesus Christ is your new master. He alone is your Lord and your God.

When He purchased you through His sacrifice on the cross, He decided to no longer call you a servant, but as His friend.

John 15:15 World English Bible (WEB)
¹⁵No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you.

Even more, He not only calls you His friend, but calls you into His family where you can call Him as your Heavenly Father. God grants you the privilege to be His beloved child.

1 John 3:2 World English Bible (WEB)
²Beloved, now we are children of God. It is not yet revealed what we will be; but we know that when he is revealed, we will be like him; for we will see him just as he is.

And so, you have the freedom to be God’s child and to be friends with Him. You do not need to be a slave to evil passions or sinful desires but now you are led by Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of God. So, come out of the darkness and into the light to enjoy your relationship with God. Freedom was never cheap. Someone had to pay a heavy price for it.

But, since Jesus already paid for our freedom, it is now free for you to access. Now, it’s up to you to experience the freedom which God has granted to you.

John 8:32 World English Bible (WEB)
³²You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Psalm 119:45

The world makes it very easy to retain pride and to not stay humble. And one of the greatest temptations a person can face is to allow pride to fester in their lives. Pride is harmful and can destroy relationships, progress, and the people who hold onto pride. It is vital for the sake of your mental health, to let go of pride but that isn’t so easy. So, continue reading to find out what the Bible says about staying humble and how God wants us to forsake pride.

Why Pride is a Dangerous Game to Play

You must know that pride is a horrible and rigged game to play. You cannot expect to hold onto pride and success at the same time. You’ll have to drop one or the other in order to retain what’s more important to you. The reason why I talk about this topic is because its danger seems so subtle, but, it’s so damaging and destructive to one’s mental health in the long term.

Don’t hold onto something which destroys you.

Proverbs 16:18 World English Bible (WEB)
¹⁸Pride goes before destruction,
and an arrogant spirit before a fall.

But, what’s pride? Pride is when a person sees himself/herself as better than others and sets his/her value on his/her accomplishments. And as you see in the above verse, God warns us through His Word that pride is a prerequisite for destruction and here’s why.

Firstly, pride disables a person’s ability to heed to wise counsel. What I mean by this is that when you decide to magnify yourself, it creates in you a newfound hatred towards the advice of others.

Ask yourself this question and be honest with yourself. Do you find it easy to reject advice which you know to be true but you reject it nevertheless? For your own sake, do what is wise, listen to what wisdom says.

Proverbs 11:2 World English Bible (WEB)
²When pride comes, then comes shame,
but with humility comes wisdom.

Secondly, pride ruins relationships. People naturally hate to see pride in others. So, when the closest ones to you see that you don’t listen to them or that you demean others based on your status, this makes them upset.

Proverbs 29:23 World English Bible (WEB)
²³A man’s pride brings him low,
but one of lowly spirit gains honor.

And finally, pride distracts you from keeping your eyes on Jesus. When you focus on your efforts and yourself, this defeats the mission God has called you to. Jesus said that to follow Him, you must deny yourself. You must deny your pride to follow Jesus.

Luke 9:23 World English Bible (WEB)
²³He said to all, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me

Therefore, God does not like pride, people tend to not like pride, and you should not like pride because it does nothing but harm to yourself.

Staying Humble Before God

So, what is God saying in all of this, stay humble. Staying humble may be one of the most difficult things to do but it’s an essential step in everyone’s life. Because God makes it clear that if you hold onto how good you are and how successful you have made yourself, you leave no space for Him.

When one hosts pride and gives it a room to stay in his/her heart, it takes the whole space. It is a poison to your relationship with God.

Psalm 10:4 World English Bible (WEB)
⁴The wicked, in the pride of his face,
has no room in his thoughts for God.

And God paid a very high price to establish that relationship with you by coming in the flesh as Jesus Christ and dying on your behalf so that you would not be condemned for your past sins. If you have not yet entered that relationship with God, then accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour which I talk more about in this post. So, don’t jeopardize your relationship with God by idolizing pride. Give glory to God and not yourself.

Jesus calls you to live in a loving relationship with Him!

When you make lots of money or get good grades or win a friendly competition, stay humble and give credit to God in Christ Jesus. In everything, do not puff up yourself and how you did it but give glory to Jesus as He empowers you with the grace to live your life.

1 Corinthians 10:31 World English Bible (WEB)
³¹Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

The bottom line is to not stand in His way by living in pride but stand with Him as you stand with His humility.

James 4:6 World English Bible (WEB)
⁶But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

Staying Humble Before Others

Furthermore, the Bible wants us to be humble even when we deal with people. Jesus demonstrated humility and stressed on the importance of staying humble. There’s a beauty to when you see someone who is humble. And I believe that humility is one of the reasons why Jesus is so beautiful in His personality.

Before Jesus went to bear the sins of mankind, He dealt with the issue of pride. He washed the feet of his disciples as if He was a servant and then He said something phenomenal!

John 13:14-17 World English Bible (WEB)
¹⁴If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵For I have given you an example, that you should also do as I have done to you. ¹⁶Most certainly I tell you, a servant is not greater than his lord, neither is one who is sent greater than he who sent him. ¹⁷If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

Now, first get what God is not saying here. He is not commanding us to wash the feet of people, otherwise, the epistles and the letters from the apostles would have stressed on the practice of washing the feet of others. There’s no harm in washing the feet of others but the point Jesus was getting across was to be humble.

He gave us an example to be humble and He showed us that when we are humble with each other, there is a special blessing for that.

How to stay humble? It’s simple, surrender your pride to God and whenever you do something successfully, give the glory to God. When you deal with people, ask God for the grace to see them as He sees them and recognize that the same God who knitted you in the womb has knit them, too. Ask Jesus for the grace to love others and when you love others, pride will have no open door to enter your heart.

1 Peter 4:10 World English Bible (WEB)
¹⁰As each has received a gift, employ it in serving one another, as good managers of the grace of God in its various forms.

Use His gift of grace to stay humble and enjoy your life with Jesus.

By Andre Wijesekera

Tag: pride

Freedom to Live Victoriously and Not as a Captive