Our Footsteps: Breaking the Power of Pride

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Breaking the Power of Pride

Leviticus. Now there's a book we don't refer to very often. A verse struck me this evening in Leviticus 26:19 - "And I will break down your pride of power". Pride is a dangerous thing. Pride puts us in a perilous position before God. The greater context of this verse has God rehearsing once again with the sons of Israel the blessings of obedience versus the penalties of disobedience. One of the consequences listed for disobedience was the pride of their power being broken down.

What does that mean? What is the pride of power? The dictionary gives a couple of good definitions of pride: 1). a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, or 2). pleasure or satisfaction taken in something done by or belonging to oneself or believed to reflect credit upon oneself. There are a few more definitions listed, but I don't need to insult your intelligence. You know what pride is. You and I both experienced it today, probably to a large degree.

Pride makes us feel good. We feel there is a certain amount of power attached to pride. But pride is Satan's effective tool to have us steal glory that belongs to God, because power is the rightful attribute of God alone. When we are prideful, are we not assuming that WE are powerful and WE deserve some of the glory? Any strength we have is a direct gift from God. He could snap his omnipotent finger and any strength or power we thought we had could instantly disappear. Just ask Bernard Madoff, Saddam Hussein, Adolph Hitler, Goliath or the builders of the Tower of Babylon. Pride eventually renders people useless, irrelevant, embarrassed, broken, unfruitful or dead. Is it worth the consequences?

God will break the power of pride with whatever method He chooses. The question is not 'IF', but 'WHEN'.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: And we have seen many times in the past that this pride of the U.S. is being broken down. In particular, the most recent capturing of a U.S. ship captain by a group of renegade pirates holding the power of the U.S. Navy at bay proves that we are too weak as a people because we have been reckless in our lust for power.; April 10, 2009 at 10:14 PM

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