Faith Filled Family Magazine November 2016 | Page 98

The prideful no longer exercises
a healthy attitude toward others.
Rather than displaying an attitude of compassion, they demonstrate an attitude of contempt
or even cruelty. They may find
its acceptable to offend others
without asking forgiveness.
The prideful begin to wonder why
others have not achieved to their
level of performance. What’s
wrong with them? I did it. Why
can’t they? Remember the two
men that went up to the temple
to pray? The Pharisee prayed,
11. “God, I thank you that I am
not like other people—robbers,
evildoers, adulterers—or even
like this tax collector. 12. I fast
twice a week and give a tenth of
all I get.”
13. “But the tax collector stood
at a distance. He would not even
look up to heaven, but beat his
breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’’
What did Jesus say about the
Pharisee who exalted himself
over others? He said, “Those
who exalt themselves will be
humbled” (Matthew 18:14 NIV).
Pride is the main ingredient for
disaster in this Christian life:
“Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before a fall”
(Proverbs 16:18 NIV).
SELF-CONFIDENCE WITHOUT
PRIDEFULNESS
We can live a Christian life of
self-confidence without pridefulness if we remember who made
us and who is making us every
day. When we ruminate on the
truth that through him “we live

and move and have our being”
(Acts 17:28 NIV)), we exercise
an appropriate concept of self
because we understand that all
that we are is based on who he
is. When we understand that
because God “is at work in [us]
both to will and to do for His
good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13
NKJV), we cannot thank ourselves. Our self-confidence exists because he is at work in us,
through us and for us.
When a person knows the gifts
God has given, and hones them
and uses them to do the work
that God has assigned, that person lives a fulfilled life. This is
appropriate self-confidence because that person really doesn’t
rely wholly on self, reliance is
placed on the self God has created.
The essence of our self-confidence should rest not on our
achievements, but on the One
who made all our achievements
possible. Our standing in Christ
should be the cause of our happiness about who we are. As I
saw on a church bulletin, “It’s Not
Who We Are But Whose we are.”
And whose are we? We are the
children of the Most High, heirs
and joint heirs with Christ. Our
standing, gifts, achievements
are an inheritance from God.
Our proper response is to be
thankful not prideful.
“For it is by grace you have been
saved, through faith--and this is
not from yourselves, it is the gift
of God. Ephesians 2:6 NIV).
We don’t have to hang our heads
as though we are nothing. We are
everything to God. From book of

Genesis to the book of Revelation, he is calling us to himself.
It is through him that we are
“fearfully and wonderfully made”
(Psalm 139:14). He is the one
that merely said the words “Let
there be,”(Genesis 1) and, from
nothing, earth, sky, sea, firmament, sun, moon and stars and
man were created. He did the
work. Those with an appropriate
self-confidence understand we
cannot praise ourselves when
God, our maker, is in the audience. He is the main draw. All
honor and praise are due him.
When we remember God is the
author and finisher of our faith,
that he labored and labors over
every word and sentence of our
lives, every comma and period,
every nuance so that our story of
lost and found is as powerful and
prosaic as his story of creation,
that he is developing a masterpiece of our lives, our self-confidence is appropriately placed
in the stages and quality of his
work.
References:
1 Cowen, G. (2003). Pride. In C.
Brand, C. Draper, A. England, S.
Bond, E. R. Clendenen, & T. C.
Butler (Eds.), Holman Illustrated
Bible Dictionary (p. 1327). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
2THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL
VERSION®,
NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978,
1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.®
Used by permission. All rights
reserved worldwide.
3 Tim Keller, Gospel in Life,
“Pride: The Case for Nebuchadnezzar,” Acasts (25/08/2016),
accessed 03/10/2016, goo.gl/
q44f7O.