I’ve been asking God how to avoid pride. People are shocked when I tell them that I have prayed that God would make me humble. I have actually taken precautions to avoid falling into the pit of pride, the worst and ugliest sin of Satan that caused him to be thrown out of heaven.
5 Ways to Avoid Pride:
1. Humble yourself before the Lord.
When we bow before the Lord and lean on Him for strength and wisdom, we are less likely to take credit for what God has done. Remember that God is everything and we are nothing. Apart from Him we can do nothing. (John 15:5) In Him we live and breathe and have our being. (Acts 17:28) If we humble ourselves, God won’t have to humble us. When we are not humble, we can’t hear Him anyway, so we want Him to humble us if we can’t humble ourselves.
2. Ask other believers to keep you accountable.
Everyone should have friends in their lives who love them for who they are. If you don’t have friends like this, ask the Lord to grant you at least one. When people believe the best in you, their rebukes are gentle, or if the rebukes are harsh, you can handle it because you know that they love you and that they don’t want you to sin. As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
3. Realize that you have been given the very thing that you are boastful about.
Whatever you feel proud about is not yours. Your gifts and talents have been given to you by God, and even your very breath. If you worked hard, it’s only because He allowed you to do so and gave you a good night’s sleep. Without proper sleep, you would not be able to function. You are nothing. You are but dust. If God used you in a powerful way, you should smash your face in the dust and thank Him, not boast about something you didn’t do. This is especially true about things of the Spirit. If God does something through you, all the glory goes to God.
4. Memorize Scripture that disarms pride. It is your sword.
The book of Proverbs is full of verses about pride: Proverbs 6:17; 11:2; 14:16; 15:25, 15:33; 16:5; 16:18; 16:25; 21:4; 25:6-7; 25:27; 26:12; 27:2; 28:11; 28:25; 29:23; 30:32. Choose a verse that convicts you, and place it on a card on your mirror so you can commit it to memory.
5. Realize that pride is ugly; humility is beautiful.
Anyone who has been hurt by someone else’s pride knows how ugly it is. Pride looks down on other people, whereas humility regards the other person as more important than themselves. I once knew a woman who was so humble that she lifted up everyone around her. She was confident in the Lord, but she never took credit for what the Lord was doing. She would always point out that it was the Lord who deserved the credit for what she had done. I want to be more like that! Lord, grant me humility!
Tags: Christian Living, humility, pride
This was EXACTLY what I needed to read today. I can’t tell you how much the message and the timing was -it-only-can-be-God perfect.
Thank you so much for sharing.
I’m pinning this to my Deliberate Faith board for future reference.
Blessings.
xoxo
I wrote this from my heart because I’ve struggled with pride my whole life. I realized that I am closer to God when I have humility, so I’ve asked God to change me in this area.
Asking others to hold us accountable is so important. I think that really helps us keep our pride in check and allows us to humble ourselves to others opinions. Pinning 🙂
Other people can see our blind spots easier than we can. It’s helpful if they love us and believe the best in us.
Yes, I was going to say (and Misty beat me to it), that having someone else assist to keep you accountable is key. And it’s a huge sign that you’re really taking it serious.
Blessings,
That’s true. You’re definitely serious when you ask other people to keep you accountable.
Number two is hard! Being vulnerable enough to hear from others how I am doing can be scary. But it’s necessary and helpful.
Humility helps us to listen, so that we can become better people when we are blind to our own sin.
Remembering that God has given us all things is such a powerful way to get rid of pride. When we keep in mind nothing is actually ours, and all that we have are gifts from God, it’s so humbling!
Exactly!
Asking accountablity is hard, we often don’t want to because of our pride. The irony there, yet is is so important I believe for any type of sin we are struggling with!
We need God’s help to transform us, since it’s impossible to conform to the image of Christ with our own strength.
#3 is so important. Nothing is ours. God gave us our talents and gifts. Yes, we have to utilize them, but we wouldn’t have them if it weren’t for Him.
Yes, we wouldn’t have any spiritual gifts if it weren’t for Him!
Asking for accountability is probably the most humbling thing I could do at this point. Thank you for the encouragement.
If you find someone who is trustworthy and is a mentor, accountability doesn’t have to be scary.
#5 seems to be missing from our culture. These are all great tips, Susan! I want to grow more humble because I’m really nothing apart from God!
Yes, humility is missing from our culture; that’s for sure!
I have also made a deliberate move to overcome pride.Humility is a true mark of followers of Christ, it is not in how much we can achieve.
Thank you for this great piece.
“Humility is a true mark of followers of Christ…” Yes!!
I think if more people understood how ugly pride is and how beautiful and refreshing humility is more would desire the latter.
Yes, we would! All we have to do is look at Jesus, who was humble and yet confident.
All are so true, but I love #3. Everything we have is a gift from our amazing Lord above. Remembering that it can be taken away as graciously as it was given is important.
Knowing that something can be taken away causes us to be sober about what we’ve been given.
All are great ways to overcome pride. I feel all are necessary to even achieve! For me, accountability is most challenging. It’s so hard to ask another sinner to help keep us in check. It involves being honest about sin and showing a side that we like to hide away. It’s important to choose wisely. Pick brothers and sisters who truly seek after God’s heart and know His truth.
“Pick brothers and sisters who truly seek after God’s heart and know His truth.” I agree!
I always want to keep the pride out also but don’t always succeed, especially when someone is hurting a friend. So to say I’m successful would be prideful and a lie… God loves that I need to lean on Him. In my weakness He is made strong. I love having accountability partners around me.
When we admit our weakness, God is able to work through us and glorify Himself all the more!