Pride VS. Humility

James 4:6 “But He gives more grace. Wherefore He says, God resists the proud, but He gives grace unto the humble.”

Pride is the greatest of all evils that beset us. [Beset: To surround; to enclose; to hem in; to besiege. To press on all sides, so as to render escape difficult or impossible. To waylay.] Of all our enemies, it is that which dies the slowest and hardest. Someone has said, "even the unsaved world can see it in those that are Christ's."

What is pride? It is the love of the fallen and ruined self-life outside of Christ. God hates pride above all things because it gives to man the exalted place that belongs to Him who is above, exalted overall.

God does not hate us (who we are in Christ), but He hates pride in us because it intercepts communion with Him. While He hates pride in us but loves us in His Son, He lovingly chastens us.

We should always edify one another in Christ, but the greatest injury we could inflict on someone is to praise them and feed their pride. You and I are far too short-sighted to be able to judge the degree of someone's "spirituality." God would have us not to judge or evaluate others for good or bad, but with His grace that humbles us, to remember that the surest and best judgment is what we form of ourselves when we esteem others better than ourselves (Phil. 2:3).

Let's tell each other what the Master thinks of each other, and what we think of our Master. The fellowship that we are to enjoy with one another is around Christ only, Christ in one another, and Christ present.

Fellowship (koinonia), is always and only the setting aside of the private interests and desires of the flesh, and joining in with another or others for the purpose of exalting Christ, and Him alone, and Him alone in each other (1 Jhn. 1:3).