Pride

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Thursday, April 23, 2015
Jeff Lampl

Begin 

Silence, Stillness, and Centering before God (2 minutes)  


Scripture

“everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world”        1 John 2:16 (NIV2011)


Reflect          

According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through pride that the devil became the devil: pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind. . . . .it is pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began.”¹

Lewis tells us that pride is “essentially competitive—is competitive by its very nature—while the other vices are only competitive, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only having more of it than the next man . . . . it is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.”²

Because of its nature, pride eats away at our relationships. . . .  pride always means enmity—it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man but enmity to God . . . . as long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you.”³

The remedy for our pride is humility. “If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realize one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited, indeed.”   (C.S.Lewis  Mere Christianity pp 109-111)

Conclude with Silence   (2 minutes)

 
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