Pride vs. Humility

James 4:6 “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

I wonder what would have happened if Adam and Eve had humbled themselves before God after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? If they hadn’t hidden their nakedness, but come to God and confessed what they had done?

For Adam and Eve, knowing what was right came with knowing what was wrong. “The desire to do what is good and our inherent nature to do what is evil is a tension that lives within us all in varying degrees.”

We are still a lot like Adam and Eve aren’t we? When our kids do something wrong, they do one of two things; they either try to hide whatever has happened from us or they try to make up for what they’ve done…to pay for their wrong.
What we want from them more than anything is their honesty. There may still be consequences for the wrongdoing but being straightforward and honest about it instead of lying or covering it up goes A LONG WAY! I tend to be far more willing to show grace when there is honesty, humility, and repentance as opposed to secrecy, deceit, and lying (on top of the initial wrong).

“Dad, I told a lie… Mom, I hit my sister…Dad, I stole a candy bar… Mom, I said a bad word…”

These are amazing things to hear as a parent!  Not amazing because of the things our kids are doing but amazing because they are recognizing their sin and confessing those things in a spirit of honesty.

We're all learning and growing.  Humility, honesty, vulnerability and authenticity is the how we grow.

God’s ways are higher than our ways. We are limited in our understanding of how much He really loves us so He sent a beautiful, amazing, crazy generous and gracious gift to show us that there is nothing we can do to make Him love us more than He already does. His unconditional love is His gift to us and it is not something we can earn…it is totally free to us. 

“The only sacrifice to be made is of our pride; to defy shame, to come humbly before him in our nakedness, heart bare, sin showing, falling short… warts and all. When God asks, “where are you?” you respond, “Here I am.” ”

“A broken and contrite spirit” is one that is honest about its flaws. It doesn’t try to hide or try to prove its worth. Even with all its flaws it knows it is accepted and loved, (Eph 1:6) and comes before the throne of grace humbly and yet with confidence and assurance that it will be accepted and loved even in its broken condition . (Heb 4:16).

“Sacrifice is seen in two ways. We either sacrifice our pride leading us toward love. Or we sacrifice love to protect our pride, which leads us towards division, disunity and disconnection.”

We have a choice to make…which will you sacrifice? What will you lay down?

James 4:6 says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

The heart behind making a sacrifice is LOVE. You sacrifice because you value something or  someone.

You will never regret sacrificing your pride in order to be vulnerable, genuine, transparent, known by God and others. On the other hand you’ll never experience real love and intimacy with others if you sacrifice vulnerability, genuineness, honesty and transparency for the sake of your pride.

Don’t hide…Don’t cover up…Don’t lie…Don’t let your pride destroy intimacy and unity!

P.S. If you read this please let me know :)