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How to Avoid Spiritual Pride

Because of the Presence of

God Being with You Strongly

The Bible says that our salvation and growth toward God is, "to the end that we...would be to the praise of His glory" (Eph. 1:12). We do just the opposite. When we fill our desire for God by earthly means we can’t keep from living to the praise of our glory—not God’s.

The Bible says, "...the inward thought and the heart of a man are deep" (Psa. 64:6). The many ways we live to the praise of our glory are extensive and run very deep. For some boasting is loud—so loud, that it is obvious they are feeding themselves with themselves. But for most of us our boasting is internal and quiet. Others of us, go so far as to puff themselves up with the power and control they feel by self-directed hate. Even this is a form of boasting and self-exaltation.

The difficulty is that it is common for us to cope with life by quietly directing subtle forms of praise back toward ourselves. Don’t make the assumption that you are pure in this area. The likelihood is that you are not—take that by faith. And don’t try to correct yourself by condemnation. That will only hide the truth even more. Even though your boasting may be outwardly directed to God, you need to be sure that it is building confidence in God and not in yourself.

I remember being in the bathroom after just having taken a shower. I hadn’t put my shirt on yet and happened to glance in the mirror. Now, keep in mind here that as of this writing, I am 44 years old. I like to ride my mountain bike, but I am still kind of flabby. Definitely not anything to look at, especially with my shirt off. But as my eyes raced across the image in the mirror my biceps caught my attention. In my head, I knew that my upper arm was pushed down against my side and my muscles had only "jelloed" out against my side. Even so, I went, "Hmm." I thought it looked good. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t really muscle. I knew it wasn’t the truth, but even so, I was still impressed.

The principle we learn from this is that God designed us so that some form of praise and boasting is a must—whether toward God, or toward ourselves. Wherever we believe there is glory, there is always praise. Quenching our thirst always involves praise—even if the praise is only subtle and internal—even if the praise is for how hateful we are being toward ourself. Praise is always present when you are quenching your thirsty desires. That is just the way God made it work.

Humanly speaking, we derive great amounts of emotional and physical energy from these subtle forms of self-directed praise. We need the energy. But we don’t need the self-directed praise. Hear me in this: you can derive even greater emotional and physical energy from directing that praise toward God. You just have to know how.

You have to reverse the direction that the inner praise flows. Then you have to keep it going outward and toward God. Doing that is something that takes practice.

Redirect the inner praise flows by placing heavy emphasis on words like, the "Lord," "You," and "God" in your personal times of praise toward God. For example: The LORD is worthy of my praise; Lord, YOU are my refuge; GOD is my courage. As you do this, look at the Lord and praise each of His attributes shining upon you. Thank the Lord with great delight by saying something like, "Lord, I love the closeness of YOUR kindness—I love YOUR power being radiated upon me." A few days of applying this principle intensely several times during the day will reverse the direction of praise so that it becomes more natural for the praise to keep flowing toward God. Applying these principles will help you to boast in a way that reminds you that He is God and not you.

The danger is that you could easily make the mistake that the prophet Ezekiel warned about: "They transformed the beauty of His ornaments into pride" (Ezek. 7:20). If you look at the radiance of God upon you without praising Him for His attributes the result will be that you will "transform the beauty of His presence into pride."

Be careful. Acting as an observer who looks back at the shine of God’s presence around you, will result in great spiritual pride and in a sudden decreased resistance to sin. Don’t be like a fruit tree that turns from it’s source and tries to feed itself on the fruit! Instead, keep your focus directed out from the inside of you toward the Lord. It is right that you direct praise toward His attributes—and not yours.

Let me say it again. If you look at the radiance of God upon you and you fail to keep the praise going toward each of His attributes, the praise will eventually work it’s way around and come back toward you. Self-centered pride will get stronger and you will get weaker toward sin.

Excitement and boasting about God being your God is a good thing. But be careful. There is a very fine line between boasting in God and boasting in yourself. If you don’t develop a habit of praising each of His attributes, it will be very easy to begin praising the closeness of the Lord and wind up with the praise coming back toward you.

Thrill your heart with the nearness of God—but not by comparing the intensity of God’s presence with you compared to other people. That only results in praise toward you. If you are looking at others and thinking about what you have compared to them the result is always pride—even if you aren’t aware that it is happening. Heart-train yourself away from comparing yourself to others. Thank the Lord that you don’t have to exalt yourself with His presence. Thrill your heart with this truth.

The balance on this is not found in the middle. That only leads to mediocrity and error. In this case, balance is in the right combination of extremes. Look at the Lord. Look at His radiance shining onto you. But keep the praise going toward each of the attributes of God that you see by faith coming upon you. You can’t afford to relax on this. 

Note: There is a section in the Heart-training book that is aimed specifically at the topic of putting off spiritual pride and putting on the humility of Christ. It is helpful.   

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I am praying for the Lord's abundant blessing on your efforts to direct your heart toward Him.

Barry.

        Heart-training — Continued...

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(C) Barry Hall 1999

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