PRIDE-CAUSES
Pride is
the presumption that we can be happy without depending on God as the source of
our happiness and without caring if others find their happiness in God. Pride
is the passion to be happy contaminated and corrupted by two things: 1) the
unwillingness to see God as the only fountain of true and lasting joy, and 2)
the unwillingness to see other people as designed by God to receive our joy in
Him. If you take the desire to be happy and strip away from it God as the
fountain of your happiness, and people as the recipients of your happiness,
what you have left is pride. Pride is the pursuit of happiness anywhere but in
the glory of God and the good of other people.
Desiring God, Bethlehem Baptist Church, 1996, p. 281-281, used by
permission. www.DesiringGod.org.
[Pride] comes
from not knowing yourself and the world. The older you grow, and the more you
see, the less reason you will find for being proud. Ignorance and inexperience are the pedestal of pride; once the pedestal is removed
pride will soon come down.
J.C. Ryle
Thoughts for Young Men.
The fact is,
the higher up we find ourselves in terms of power, influence, and wealth the more
people look up to us the more vulnerable we are to pride and self-deceit, and
the more prone we are to be blind to our spiritual needs and deficiencies. Once
we are established in a position of influence, we have a reputation to
maintain. We have a lot to lose if we get honest about our real spiritual
needs. For most of us, the subtle encroachment of pride is more dangerous, and
more likely to render us useless to God and others, than any other kind of
failure.
Nancy Leigh DeMoss
Brokenness, The Heart God Revives, Moody
Publishers, 2002, p. 81-82.
Some people
get so caught up in their own holiness that they look at the Trinity for a
possible vacancy.
John MacArthur
Leadership, v. 7, n. 2.
Be not proud
of race, face, place, or grace.
C.H. Spurgeon
Those who
think too much of themselves dont think enough.
Amy Carmichael
When a man
thinks he has got a good deal of strength, and is self-confidence, you may look
for his downfall. It may be years before it comes to light, but it is already
commenced.
D.L. Moody
Christian History, n. 25.
Pride
is the idolatry of the self. It is the nature of pride as competition with God
the displacing of God by the self at the center that has led many Christian
thinkers through the ages to regard pride (superbia) as the mother sin and
the essential element in all sin.
Robert S. Rayburn
Pride
and Humility, Tabletalk, May 2008, p. 64, Used by Permission.
Self is the
most treacherous enemy, and the most insinuating deceiver in the world. Of all
other vices, it is both the hardest to find out, and the hardest to cure.
Richard Baxter