Pride goes before destruction,
and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18

Strong words! Sober warning!

If we live in pride, God warns us: You are headed for destruction. You are headed for a fall.

We may not know when or where or how the fall will come. It may not come fully until we die, but the fall will come. Sooner or later, we will be humbled.

But what exactly is pride? Pride is when we rely upon ourselves rather than God. When we live for ourselves rather than God. When we are preoccupied with ourselves rather than God.

Pride is when we refuse to humble ourselves before God and obey his commands. When we draw attention to ourselves and promote ourselves. When we think we are responsible for the good things in our lives.

Pride is when we strut around and act as if we were God.

Unfortunately, none of us is immune to pride. All of us are infected by the insidious plague of pride – an infection that is self-destructive. For pride inevitably leads to destruction.

C.S. Lewis once described the sin of pride:

According to Christian teachers the essential vice, the utmost evil, is pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through pride that the devil became the devil: pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.

Pride is the mother hen under which all other sins are hatched.

Pride is the essence of sin. Sin is fundamentally self-centeredness.

Pride keeps more people out of the kingdom of God than anything else.

The great jurist, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., once remarked: “The great act of faith is when man decides that he is not God.”

Well put! Recognize that you are not God and decide to live your life for the one who is God, Jesus Christ.