I’m Feeling Myself
I want to spend a little time talking about perhaps the single, biggest threat to the spiritual life we encounter as Christians: The vice of pride. Perhaps no other vice will destroy your fellowship with God more than pride. What makes pride so insidious is how cleverly it hides from sight. We usually don’t know when we’re operating in pride; it lurks around in the shadows of our subconscious, causing all sorts of problems for us.
Pride is Not What You Think It Is
We all think we know what pride is. It’s easy to see how vices like arrogance, or conceit, or thinking too highly of ourselves get us into trouble. However, none of these is really what pride is.
Pride comes in many forms. Once you start to really understand and appropriate union life, you begin to see that pride is trying to live in any way other than out of union. Pride is relying on any source other than Christ’s life in me, whether that be my intellect, reason, skill or whatever. One thing we often fail to see as Christians is that we often operate in pride while doing things that outwardly look like “serving the Lord.” You can read your Bible in pride. “Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies” (1 Corinthians 8:1). You can pray in pride (Luke 18:9-14). You can serve in ministry and be consumed with pride.
The early Fathers of the Church often interpreted the Genesis story to be a story about how pride sneaks up on us. Before the fall, Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed. That’s because they weren’t conscious of themselves. However, the devil tempted them. How did he do it? By getting them to look at themselves first. Remember the thought Eve had, after Satan put the bug in her ear about the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?
“She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it…” (Genesis 3:6, NLT).
That’s Satan’s first trick: get you to stop looking at Christ and start looking at self.
After sin entered the picture, Adam and Eve became “aware of their nakedness.” Next, shame crept in on the heels of sin. However, at root, Adam and Eve were ashamed because they were now aware of themselves. In particular, they were aware of themselves as no longer one with God. That is the very source of shame.
This is what pride does; it causes us to become overly concerned with ourselves—our wisdom, our intelligence, our desires, our performance, our poor conduct, our good conduct, our nakedness, our lack, our regret, our shame. Pride gets us focused on self and ego.
From earliest times, the Church has taught that pride is the "root" of sin, as it was pride that caused not only the fall of Adam and Eve, but the fall of Lucifer Himself. Why did Lucifer fall from the kingdom of heaven? Because instead of worshiping God (which was his created and assigned role), Lucifer began to look at himself and his own beauty. (see Ezekiel 28:12-17).
Pride leads to the belief in one's own self-sufficiency and autonomy—that we can accomplish things independently of God’s will. This disposition, in turn, leads to disobedience to God and a rejection of His will. But it often starts with an inordinate focus on self. In contrast, humility is seen as the antidote to pride, as it involves focusing on our Lord Jesus and His saving work in us.
Pride, Self, and Ego
The story of King Saul and the Amalekites is particularly illustrative of the dangers of pride. During this time in Jewish history, the Israelites were engaged in war with a nearby people called the Amalekites. Shortly after Saul became king of Israel, the prophet Samuel told Saul the following: “The Lord sent me to anoint you king over His people, over Israel. Now therefore, heed the voice of the words of the Lord. 2 Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. 3 Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey,” (1 Samuel 15: 1-3).
So, Saul went out and did what Samuel told him—sort of. Saul did kill a large number of the Amalekites, but he did not fully complete the job. “…And Saul attacked the Amalekites, from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is east of Egypt. 8 He also took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. 9 But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed” (1 Samuel 15:7-9). Saul killed whatever he deemed as worthless, but spared the king of the Amalekites, along with the best of the spoils.
“This upset the LORD God, and it grieved Samuel as well. When Saul returned to Samuel, Saul declared that he had obeyed the commandment of the Lord. But Samuel said, ‘What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?’” (1 Samuel 15: 14). In other words, Samuel asked Saul: “If you killed everything the Lord told you to, why do I hear sheep and oxen making noise in the background?” And Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.” (1 Samuel 15:15). But notice, this isn’t exactly what the Lord commanded Saul to do. Saul completed part of the job but not the whole job. He was not supposed to spare anything from among the Amalekites.
A deeper word study shows that the word “Amalekite” comes from the root word “Amal.” Do you know what “Amal” means in Hebrew? It means “pride, self, and ego.”
Look at this story with spiritual eyes, with Holy Spirit revelation eyes. Pastor Mike received a revelation from this passage years ago. He says that the Spirit showed him that what God commands of us is the same thing He commanded of Saul—to destroy pride, self, and ego, fully. The Lord does not want us to leave any pride left. Don’t leave any amalekite left in your life. The Apostle James taught us that God actually opposes the proud, but He gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). If you want a surefire way to get God Almighty to oppose you, then refuse to kill your pride, self, and ego like Saul did.
Unfortunately, aside from a few occasions of repentance, Saul never really did overcome his pride. Later on in his life, we see that it was Saul’s pride that later killed him. In a very real sense, Saul fell on his own sword of pride (1 Samuel 31). Some Bible scholars say Saul committed suicide. Others say that Saul didn’t actually die when he fell on his own sword. The Amalekites that Saul failed to completely annihilate in chapter 15 came back to murder him in chapter 31. God does not take pride lightly. Pride will kill your spiritual life faster than any other vice.
