The Sneaky Pride of Flesh

While there are good forms of pride, our sneaky flesh resists humbling itself before God and others. Our flesh is infested with self pride (“Look at wonderful me, not you,”) and zero God-pride (“Look at our wonderful God; let me love and serve you.”)  We need to resist our pride yet not condemn ourselves, because both Satan and our flesh often sneak into our thoughts.  

Satan puts a prideful thought in our minds and then condemns us for thinking it, even though it’s not our own and disgusts us.  Then Satan condemns us as if we wanted the thought.   After that we could become morose, offering unwarranted repentance, yet none of that was our desire or fault.  In those cases, we did not sin, because we felt tempted by Satan.  We only sin when we act upon the prideful thought Satan planted.

Our prideful thoughts are distasteful to the Holy Spirit living in us, and he graciously alerts us when we think prideful things or when Satan plants those thoughts into our minds.   If we are not sure if this was our own thought or a foreign one Satan planted, and if we think we are sinning with this thought, we can repent. Either way, we must not condemn ourselves (Roms.8:1, “There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”)  Both our own flesh and the devil think in prideful ways. This does not mean we don’t love God or don’t have the Holy Spirit. 

Instead, we can recognize we will always fight against our flesh’s desire to be prideful.  And pride differs from one woman to the next.  One woman may want to be compassionate and giving, yet pride causes her to brag about serving others.  Another woman may be athletic and want to show off that quality.  The first woman would never be tempted to mention her exercise routine, and the second woman would not show off if she ever served another person.  Pride would tempt these women, and us, differently.  What matters is our awareness of our weak areas, so we can resist our flesh’s and the devil’s lure of pride.

When we are weak in some areas, our flesh and Satan will strive to entice us to think more highly of ourselves than we should.  Imagine a woman who is the best in her field. 
This woman is still not worth more than another human being.  Even if her pride tells her she earned the right to disdain others and use them as pawns, she would be dead wrong.

Most of us feel humble enough to not relate to the elite “best in her field” woman I described.  Satan knows we know this, so he will use subtle ways to stir our flesh to pride.  Even our Christian walk can become a source of pride.  Consider the Pharisees who wore long flowing robes and wanted others to admire their religiosity (Luke 20:46, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love respectful greetings in the market places…”)  I have had Pharisee thoughts too.   For example, we were on vacation, and a prideful thought popped into my head.  It said, “If the people in the unit next door saw you singing praise songs with your hands raised, they would know you have a strong faith. Then they would listen if you shared your faith with them.”  The same day I remembered that thought and felt terrible about it. The Holy Spirit reminded me, “People listen to those who listen to them and love them.”  I thought of Jesus’ ministry to the fallen Samaritan woman at the well.  She divorced all 5 of her husbands as seen in John 4:7-26.  He loved her before he spoke about his position as Messiah.  I don’t know if Satan or my flesh planted that thought, but I repented of it.  By God’s grace I was able to listen to my hurting (and very sweet) neighbors in the next unit later that same day.

I am so thankful the Holy Spirit alerted me to that prideful thought.  It was so ugly.  Another time, a thought popped into my head of me leading a huge crowd to the Lord, the way Peter did in Acts2:14-42.  I smiled, but then frowned.  I instantly recognized pride.  I immediately prayed, “Lord, don’t let me be a hero. Don’t let me ever get the praise.  Only let you get the praise.”  The devil probably wanted me to think of crowds, so I would feel ashamed of my small sphere of influence.  I am a “stay at home mom,” and I don’t interact with as many people as busy, important “work outside the home moms.”  I know God loves me as much as these busy, important moms. But I don’t meet as many people daily.  Thus I won’t get to share the Gospel with as many people.

Normally I am not only content with my humble life, but I am joyful.  But Satan wanted to shame me about my small sphere and make me covet reaching more people and then to have a godless pride about it. Yet I recognized this the moment those thoughts popped into my head.

While this “pride trick” of Satan’s was too obvious and easy for me to refute, his more subtle tricks work. Who would recognize being grumpy or thankless as a form of pride?  Sometimes it can be.  For me, these two attitudes are often prideful.  When I am not thankful, I assume I should always receive these good things or even think I should have received more (more sunshine, warmer weather, a better metabolism, etc.) This pride is harder for me to catch then the two earlier examples I shared.

And what about my impatience?  Sometimes my pride thinks the other person is too slow or too needy and taking too much of my time. How I have ached when I realized this terrible pride, and I repented and asked the person I was impatient with to forgive me and let me serve her better. 

So is there any good pride?  According to the Apostle Paul, there is (Gals.6:4, “Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else.”)  We can have pride in a humble and kind way.  This seems like a contradiction, yet it is not. While godless pride says, “I’m better than others.  Look at me.  I deserve more.  I should never suffer,” (and worse things), a humble or godly pride says, “God I take pride in you.”  It also says, “I like the life I have,” or “I feel proud of the hard work I do, and now I can share my good things with others and see them smile,” or “I’ve enjoyed so much, so now I am willing to suffer when trouble comes.”  With this thankful attitude a gal sees her strengths and has a thankful pride.  A smart gal would know she is smart and might want to patiently tutor others.  A strong gal admits she’s strong and might joyfully help her elderly friend do some heavy lifting.  And while these gals are tutoring or heavy lifting, they are not bragging about their skill, but having a happy conversation with their friend, enjoying her company. 

We can discern whether the fruit of our pride leads to life or death (Gal.6:8, “Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.”)  Our lives will show that our pride is godly or godless.  When we love and honor God more, when we bring joy to others, our pride is the wholesome kind.  You can see the fruit of the spirit in Gal. 5: 22-23.  When our pride is sinful, we bring sorrow and strife to others, and you can see the list of those bad behaviors in Gals.5:19-21.  When you look at what your behavior is producing, you get an idea of whether you have wholesome pride or the ungodly kind.

So when a prideful thought pops into your head, don’t condemn yourself even if it is godless.  If you’re not sure if Satan falsely planted it, you can repent.  But this thought may not have been your own, so please feel no shame.  Even if your sinful flesh planted it, when you repent, there is no place for shame. In Gal.5:17, the apostle Paul said, “The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions.”  Our flesh and the Holy Spirit will fight each other.

If you find you are often grumpy, ask God to help you root out pride that resists giving thanks.  Again, never condemn yourself, (John 3:18a “Whoever believes in Him{Jesus} is not condemned.”)  Keep forgiving yourself, even as you keep searching your heart for sinful pride (Psalm 139:23-24.)  God is faithful to bring us to completion one day (Phil.1:6.)  We will struggle against our flesh as long as we are in our sinful bodies.  But God can keep refilling us to become more like him as he refines us with fire (Dan.12:10, 1Peter1:7.) This fleshly pride fights the Holy Spirit’s work, but God will strengthen us to fight that pride, though this will be a life-long battle.  Our mind, like a garden we thought we had weeded so well, will still have more weeds of pride that pop up when we do not expect it. Until we are in heaven, we will fight the pride of our flesh, but God is good, and he will keep us strong for this battle.

Thanks for reading today’s post.  I pray we have blessed you with this post.  My daughters would testify I fight this battle, so you never have to worry about me judging you.  Please, never judge yourself either.  May God bless you this week!