"If you DECLARE the gospel and don't LIVE IT - you will confuse people.
If you LIVE the gospel and don't DECLARE IT - you will condemn people."

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The Many, The Proud, The World

Whoever said that pride is a virtue never stopped to consider what God thinks about it...

“The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverted mouth, I hate." (Prov 8:13)

The only way pride can be a virtue is if sin is a virtue and Jesus didn't die for a virtue. In fact we know that "...whatever is not from faith is sin. (Rom 14:23) This means that everything an unbeliever does is sin. So here is an interesting thought. The only thing an unbeliever can be proud of...is his sin.

But the world exalts pride. This is well typified in an article entitled The Virtue of Pride which says, "pride is a compass that points to self-esteem as its goal..." Can I say it like this? Self-esteem is the goal and pride is how to get there.

But think about this...

If there were ever a person who deserved to be proud it would be Jesus, right? I mean after all...no one else can say "I can get you to heaven." "Oh, and, by the way...no one else can do it but me." But was He proud? To borrow words from the Apostle Paul, "May it never be!" In fact Jesus is our perfect example of humility.

So...do we want God's opposition or His grace?

We want His grace and we want others to have His grace but that won't happen if we don't declare the gospel. That means as we live the gospel they must see in us that Christ is the goal and humility is how to get there...

"I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." (Phil 3:14)

A former pastor of mine told me once, "There are three words that should always describe a Christian." "The first word is humility. The second word is...humility. And the third word is...humility."