Pride - Should We Have It Or Not?

pride - 1 inordinate self-esteem: conceit; 2 a reasonable or justifiable self-respect Webster’s Dictionary

We see that the dictionary definition of “pride” contains two descriptions, one proper and one improper. There are few things assigned to us by God more exacting than the proper assessment of ourselves.

I see three, and only three, kinds of people in the world:

1) the non-Christian - the person who has not found a need for Jesus Christ as his Savior - the person living in the illusion of being an “independent-self”.

2) the converted Christian - one who has genuinely found a need for Jesus but does not yet understand the concept of “total trust” in Christ - a person living by his own steam with Christ’s occasional “help”, a type of “dependent-self”.

3) the enlightened Christian - one who recognizes his living UNION with Christ and is being transformed daily by his trust in Christ to live out through him to the world - you might label this a “dependent-SELF”.

Independent thinking breeds an inordinate self-esteem, or at least an inordinate self-dependence.
C.S. Lewis, in “Mere Christianity” gives a classical description of pride:

“There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world hates when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice. And at the same time I have very seldom met anyone, who was not a Christian, who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it in ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.”

Going on he states, “Does this seem to you exaggerated? If so, think it over. In actual fact, if you want to find out how proud you are, the easiest way is to ask yourself how much you dislike it when other people snub you, or refuse to take any notice of you, or patronize you. The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with every one else’s pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise. Now what you want to get clear is that pride is essentially competitive - is competitive by its very nature - while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.”

He continues, “The sexual impulse may drive two men into competition if they both want the same girl, but that is only by accident. They might just as likely have wanted two different girls. But a proud man will take your girl from you, not because he wants her, but just to prove to himself that he is a better man than you. Greed may drive men into competition if there is not enough to go around. But the proud man, even when he has more than he can possibly want, will try to get still more just to assert his power. Other vices may sometimes bring people together: you may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or unchaste people. But pride always means enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God.”

And then C.S. Lewis gets very specific about the number two type of person mentioned above: “Some Christians theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people. That is, they pay a penny’s worth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound’s worth of pride toward their fellow-men. . . . Luckily, we have a test. Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good - above all, that we are better than someone else - I think that we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil.”

Mr. Lewis finally describes the proper kind of pride for a Christian: “Pleasure in being praised is not “pride”. The child who is patted on the back for doing a lesson well, the woman whose beauty is praised by her lover, the saved soul to whom Christ says, ‘Well done’, are pleased and ought to be. For here the pleasure lies not in your qualities but in the fact that you have pleased someone you wanted (and rightly wanted) to please. The trouble begins when you pass from thinking, ‘I have pleased him and all is well,’ to thinking, ‘What a fine person I must be to have done it.’ The point is that God wants you to know Him. And He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble - delightedly humble - feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life. Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man, he will be what most people call “humble” nowadays: he will not be the sort that is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what YOU said to HIM! If you do dislike him, it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about HIMSELF AT ALL!”

Well put, C.S.!! You certainly do understand "pride"!

The apostle Paul had much the same outlook himself. Paul was realistic. He knew we tend to swing between unreasonable pride and unwarranted self-abasement. THERE IS A LEGITIMATE PRIDE IN WHICH WE CAN PROPERLY INDULGE. In fact, it is the pride we MUST feel - not taking credit to ourselves but giving all credit to God through Christ. It is a pride not in what we can do but rather in the God family to which we belong!
Paul was proud of Christ working through him, not of himself. He wrote, “As for me, God forbid that I should boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14). Any boasting was not in anything he possessed or achieved in this world. And so he set strict limits on the kind of pride in which he could indulge. His confidence did not arise from anything that he could do of himself, but from what he WAS in union with Jesus Christ.

The fact is that we can do nothing at all except through the power and strength given us by God through Christ within. Whatever we have is what we received, and it is our duty to return it to God. In doing this we become part of a great cause, a great Plan, which we must never depreciate or diminish.

The distinction between legitimate and illegitimate pride, then, is clearly drawn. But it is not always easy to maintain - we are so often tempted to exalt ourselves. We may know deep down that we should glory only in being “a partaker of the divine nature” as Peter said, but we have a weakness that still wants to promote “me”.

Humility is often though of as the opposite of pride. But in reality, humility and proper pride can and should exist side by side in the Christian. Humility is not in depreciating ourselves but in exalting Christ within. Humility is the byproduct of placing our resources at the disposal of Him, and being willing to be used by Him as He sees fit.

The human “self” alone can only have a conceited pride. But when the human self is joined in union with Christ at conversion, I become a “Christ-person” - a SELF in which to have justifiable pride. I HAVE PRIDE OF SELF BECAUSE OF WHO I AM, AND NOT BECAUSE OF MY HUMAN CAPABILITIES.

[Back to Home]