Following along with our Humility series, we thought it might be helpful to post some help identifying pride in your life so you know how to identify it. As we mentioned in the sermon Sunday, sometimes getting humans to discern pride in their life is like a fish trying to discern water--it's everywhere. In light of that, our hope is that by posting these "pride indicators," we can all press into Jesus, be amazed by his shocking humility, and put sin to death by the power of the Holy Spirit. So to kick us off, here's the first 10 ways to spot pride in your life:
- Are you caught up in sin that nobody knows about? Do you avoid confession because of how you might be viewed?
- Do you have a hard time rejoicing when God provides and blesses someone, because you feel like your needs are much greater and more desperate?
- How much do you bring up yourself in conversation, or make yourself the center of the conversation? Do you always talk after somebody says something? Do you always have a story to relate the conversation back to you?
- Do you immediately defend yourself and attack people when they correct you?
- At work, do you think more about how frustrating your job is and which aspects of it are beneath you? Do you have a hard time just being grateful for God providing a job for you?
- Are you bitter?
- Do you have low self-esteem? You've inflated yourself so much that God's voice has no room to speak truth into your life. When he says, "you're valuable because you're made in my image, and defined by what I did for you in the cross," you don't hear or don't believe it because you're so consumed with what you don't like about you.
- Are you consistently angry? A short temper says "who do you think you are to talk to me like that or do that to me? Do you know who I am!? How dare you disrespect me?!"
- Are you easily annoyed?
- Are you sinfully competitive? Is your attitude and outlook on life significantly altered, even temporarily, when you don't win?