I have heard more people than I can count (almost daily) admit that they have a bad temper, or that they have a hard time not lusting after women, or that they have a drinking problem / drug problem and even a few who admit that they are cowards. Yet I do not think I have ever heard anyone who is not a Christian accuse him or herself of this vice. Most have no idea that they could be guilty of such a thing. There is however no fault that makes a person more unpopular and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves; ironically the more we have it in ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.
The vice I am writing about is PRIDE and Self–Conceit; and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals is what we call humility. According to Christian scholars, the essential vice. The utmost evil is Pride. Anger, greed, lust, drunkenness, adultery, and all the rest are mere mosquito bites in comparison; it is through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: if is the complete anti-God state of mind.
In my opening paragraph I pointed out that the more pride one had, the more one disliked pride in others. In truth, if you want to find out how proud you are, the easiest way is to ask yourself, “How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, ignore me, patronize me or show off?” the reason is, that each person’s pride is in competition with everyone else’s pride. Pride is essentially competitive by its very nature, while the other vices are competitive only. By accident Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having MORE of it than the next person. We say that people are proud of being rich, or cleaver, or beautiful; but in truth they are proud of being richER, cleavER and MORE beautiful. If everyone was equally rich, smart and beautiful there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that make s you proud , the pleasure you derive from being above the rest.
Here is the point, nearly all evils in the world that people attribute to greed, selfishness, weakness, and the like, are in reality just the symptoms of the result of PRIDE. For it is power that Pride really enjoys, there is nothing that makes a person feel so superior to others as having some sort of power over them. What makes a beautiful woman spread misery wherever she goes by collecting admirers (even after she is married)? Pride! What is it that makes a political leader or a entire nation go on and on and n demanding more and more and more? Pride yet again. If I am a proud person then as long as there is another person who is more powerful, or richer, cleaver, beautiful, or more desired then I, he is my enemy and my rival.
Other vices may sometimes in a sad way bring people together: drunks hang out with drunks, addicts with addicts, adulterers and liars with other adulterers and liars. However Pride always means hostility or mutual hatred and not just between man and man, but between man and God. Because in God you come up against something that is in every singly respect immeasurably superior to you, and thus you are nothing in comparison. As long as you are proud you can not know that, you cannot know God. A proud person is always looking down on others, and of course as long as you are looking down you cannot see something above you.
This then raises a horrible question. How can a person who is quite obviously consumed with pride, say they believe in God and appear to be very religious? The only answer is that they are worshiping an imaginary God. They in theory admit to being nothing in the presence of this phantom God, while really imagining how much He approves of them and thinks them far better than other people.
Luckily God has provided us with this simple test: Whenever we find our religious life is making us feel that we are good-above all, that we are better that someone else – we can be sure that we are being acted on, not however by God, but by the Devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is that you see yourself for what you are, as a small dirty object., or you have progressed to forgetting about yourself completely (which is the goal).
Make no mistake about this, there are many who claim to be spiritual, who claim religion, who claim forgiveness, who claim that they are a Christian. There are many who have simply out of their own pride invented a imaginary God (not the one who talks to us through the Bible) To these the Devil laughs, for while other sins come at us from our animal nature, it is pride that comes directly from hell, and to those who embrace pride, hell will take them back. To these I believe Jesus addressed when He said that many will claim him, however “Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” Matthew 7:23 Pride is THE spiritual cancer – it eats up the very possibility of love, faith, hope, contentment, honor, loyalty, courage, commitment, repentance and forgiveness, honestly or even common sense.
