Pride: That Nasty Little Nuisance

Luke 6:45 (ESV)
[45] The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

We’ve all been there, right? We respond to offenses (with words, body language, sarcasm, email or actions) in a way that doesn’t honor Christ. It’s horrible. And after we’ve calmed down our tendency is to do one of (2) things: In pride we puff up and try to justify what we said or did…Or in humility, we try to make the situation 'right' by working earnestly to convince the other person that we didn’t "really" mean the horrible things we said or did…But scripture says something to the contrary.

What Jesus is telling us in Luke, is that our heart actually fuels our mouth.  Therefore, while the things we say or do in our moments of anger or frustration may not be an indication of how we truly feel about the other person, they are an indication of how we feel about our self.  The truth is, we ignore & accept sin all of the time in our lives.  From the God-dishonoring movies & television we watch to the sinful and dishonoring conversations we partake in at work or with our friends.  If we’re honest, our reaction to “sin” often times isn’t based on its offensiveness to God, but instead it’s offensiveness to us.

Folks, let us be willing to search our hearts.  Let us remember that pride is such a nasty little nuisance.  We must be willing to invest energy to examine what our true motivation is when we are upset or offended.  Are we angry at sin because it dishonors a holy and righteous God, or are we angry because it dishonors us?  The answer to this question will go a long way in helping us discover how deeply rooted pride is in our lives, and in turn will give us something to pray about as we ask the Holy Spirit to exterminate the pride which still remains in our lives.


For His Glory,

Jason