So what is pride? If you Google ‘definition of pride’ your browser will tell you that pride is a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired.
Ok, got it…so what’s the big deal?
Before we walk this out, it’s important to point out that there is a difference between the kind of pride that God hates (Proverbs 8:13) and the kind of pride we feel about a job well done, being proud of our kids, etc. The kind of pride that stems from self-righteousness is sin, and God hates it because it is a big hindrance to seeking Him.
You don’t have to be in a leadership role to struggle with pride, because we all struggle with it. In some context of your life, we are all setup by what we have, who we know, what we can do and what we can do — and there are so many options on the remote control of life that programs us for pride.
From a young age it was easy for me to take the remote control of my own life; point it at myself and select prosperity, position and power. It didn’t take long to feel the rush of this new found pride that began to take root in my life. With pride as my rudder I quickly moved up the ranks and was promoted to the position of Vice President in my mid-thirties of a global billion dollar company, which was rich and fertile soil for my pride to grow. I had the miracle grow of pride.
I share some of that story in this excerpt from my book Heartstone:
Arrogantly striving to live up to the expectations of this performance-oriented view of the world, I built a present-day tower of Babel with my own hands—stone by stone. I learned the difficult lesson that a preoccupation with “self” distorts our perspective to view everything and everyone primarily based on the way they affect us in the moment. My relationships became more and more self-serving, and success, position, and material possessions became my security and my reality. The extent of this foolishness did not leave much space for my family and God in my fractured and fragmented life. At this stage in my life, God was simply a convenience, and I hid behind the misused word Christian as so many of us do. James Hudson Taylor, the English missionary to China, tells it like it is, “Christ is either Lord of all, or He is not Lord at all.”
With this foolish and self-centered attitude, I created a god that only met my selfish needs, and sadly enough, I was OK with that for much of my life. We have our iPods, our iPads and sadly we have our iGods. I was completely consumed by the disease of self, and it raced through my veins, eating away at my very soul like cancer.
The natural life in each of us is something self-centered, something that wants to be petted and admired, to take advantage of other lives, to exploit the whole universe. —C. S. Lewis
If you start thinking to yourselves, “I did all this. And all by myself. I’m rich. It’s all mine!”—well, think again. Remember that GOD, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors—as it is today. If you forget, forget GOD, your God, and start taking up with other gods, serving and worshiping them, I’m on record right now as giving you firm warning: that will be the end of you; I mean it—destruction. You’ll go to your doom—the same as the nations GOD is destroying before you; doom because you wouldn’t obey the Voice of GOD, your God. —Deuteronomy 8:17–20 (MSG)
There are many great stories in the Bible that deal with pride, but the story of King Nebuchadnezzar is a very cool one to take a deeper dive into.
George Rawlinson in his book ‘Historical Illustrations of the Old Testament’ shares this about Nebuchadnezzar. Modern research has shown that Nebuchadnezzar was the greatest monarch that Babylon, or perhaps the East generally, ever produced. He must have possessed an enormous command of human labor, nine-tenths of Babylon itself, and nineteen-twentieths of all the other ruins that in almost countless profusion cover the land, are composed of bricks stamped with his name. He appears to have built or restored almost every city and temple in the whole country. His inscriptions give an elaborate account of the immense works which he constructed in and about Babylon itself, abundantly illustrating the boast, ‘Is not this great Babylon which I have build?’”
In that time he was the leader, the man, the king! …and he has a lot to teach us about pride and its destructive nature.
Around 605BC Nebuchadnezzar’s army laid waste to Jerusalem and along with the spoils of war, he took some of the best and brightest Jerusalem had to offer. There were four that most have heard of; Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These guys were deep into the Babylonian cultural immersion program when Nebuchadnezzar has this dream. He gathers up all his magicians and mystics to interpret the dream without telling them what it was. He took the position that if they were really in touch with the gods that they would know what the dream was and what it meant. Yikes.
As the magicians and mystics were on the one yard line to being executed for failing to interpret the dream, Daniel shows up on the scene and asks the king to give him a day to tell him what the dream was and its meaning.
Daniel comes before God — God tells Daniel the dream and its meaning — and this outsider from Jerusalem tells Nebuchadnezzar what the dream was and what it meant.
Nebuchadnezzar is so blown away by this that he decrees that from now on everyone will worship the God Daniel serves because Daniel’s God was the God of gods.
Keep tracking with me as I set this up.
Years go by and Nebuchadnezzar forgets what God had done (like so many of us do) and decrees that everyone will now bow down and worship an idol of authority — himself. Sound familiar?
Daniel is not around; but Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego basically tell the king to go pound sand about bowing to his idol. You remember the story — because of their stand for God, they got a one way trip to the furnace.
Funniest thing happens — they don’t burn! Nebuchadnezzar pulls them out and declares a new rule. Whoever they worship, we worship!
Nebuchadnezzar has an on-again, off-again relationship with God. Sound familiar?
Years later Nebuchadnezzar has…yup you guessed it — another dream!
He dreamed of this giant tree that was so large that everyone in the world could see it. Then there was this voice in the dream that said “cut it down,” we hear timber and only a stump was left. Then there is a messenger that announces, “the holy ones declare the verdict, so that the living may know that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of people.”
Once Daniel hears this dream, his face goes completely white because he knows that the dream is about Nebuchadnezzar. Because of his pride, God was planning to cut Nebuchadnezzar down to size!
This was going to be his lot in life until he recognized once and for all that he is a king, not “the” King. Daniel says to the most powerful person on the planet that he must repent.
First pride, then the crash — the bigger the ego, the harder the fall. Proverbs 16:18 (MSG)
So what does Nebuchadnezzar do? His pride tells him that he is “the king” and says, “Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?”
This is the point in the movie when the audience would be shouting, “Noooo, you didn’t just say that?!?!?”
Even as the words were on his lips…the ax fell! A voice came from heaven, “This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your royal authority has been taken from you…seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes.”
At the end of that time, Nebuchadnezzar, raised his eyes toward heaven, and his sanity was restored. Then he praised the Most High; honored and glorified Him who lives forever.
The most powerful man on the planet was cut down and humbled by God. Tough story, but this is good news for us — the prideful!
The eyes of the arrogant man will be humbled and the pride of men brought low; the LORD alone will be exalted in that day. Isaiah 2:11
For us, we need to remember that no matter how much power, position or prosperity we have…its a stewardship from God! We should never ever get all puffed up and arrogant over anything because everything we have is all temporary. Pride often robs us of our ability to see things clearly and in proper perspective. The comparative game with others kicks into high gear and in our minds, we come off better than we really are before an all-holy and all-seeing God.
Why is pride such a big deal to God? Pride is giving ourselves the credit for something that God has accomplished. Pride is taking the glory that belongs to God alone and keeping it for ourselves. Pride is essentially self-worship. Anything we accomplish in this world would not have been possible were it not for God enabling and sustaining us
Remember, one day will be have to give an account of what we did with what God has given to us because the most High is Sovereign over ALL kingdoms — even yours!
At the end of the day we need to learn to manage our pride. We must never be owned by our stuff or get puffed up or God will take an ax to our tree and we will be reduced to a stump!
How close are you to being cut down by God because of your pride?
