“Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. 3 Honesty guides good people; dishonesty destroys treacherous people. 4 Riches won’t help on the day of judgment, but right living can save you from death” Prov 11:2-4

The great Teacher, the Lord Jesus gave a teaching so that you will not suffer disgrace. “When Jesus noticed that all who had come to the dinner were trying to sit in the seats of honor near the head of the table, he gave them this advice: 8 “When you are invited to a wedding feast, don’t sit in the seat of honor. What if someone who is more distinguished than you has also been invited? 9 The host will come and say, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then you will be embarrassed, and you will have to take whatever seat is left at the foot of the table!10 “Instead, take the lowest place at the foot of the table. Then when your host sees you, he will come and say, ‘Friend, we have a better place for you!’ Then you will be honored in front of all the other guests. 11 For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Lk 14: 8-11.

What is pride? The meaning of pride is “an unreasonable feeling of superiority as to one’s talents, beauty, wealth, race, skin colour, rank, and so forth; to look down on others, to feel one deserves or is entitled to certain things due to their hard-work; disdainful behavior or treatment; insolence or arrogance of demeanor; haughty bearing.

The Holy Spirit is not saying you should be worthless, a nonentity and refuse to develop yourself. The Holy Spirit is warning you about how you conduct and display your worth so that it does not bring shame, reproach and disgrace to you.

Why must you jettison pride? The bible says it is an off shoot of the world system. It is rooted in the love of the world. It is from Satan. “Do not love the world or anything in the world.If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh,the lust of the eyes,and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away.” 1 Jn 2:15-17.

The danger of pride is that you are not acknowledging that God made you, you think you are self made. That is why he puts down the proud. In the Bible King Herod gave a speech, people applauded him and he  failed to ascribe the honour to God. An Angel slapped him and he instantly brought forth worms. Be careful of pride. Act 12:21-23. Pride is tantamount to sharing God’s glory or not giving Him the credit for what He has given you. He detests pride and you should too.

Since we all have the tendency to be proud which potentially leads to disgrace, the Holy Spirt is giving us some tips to avoid pride:

1. Be genuinely born again. When you give your life to Christ the old nature - of pride inherited from Satan is technically removed. 2 Cor 5:17

2. Listen to the Holy Spirit and obey him. In the story and illustration Jesus shared above, naturally when you get to such an event, “something” will tell you “Dele Dada sit in the lower place” but, another “voice” will say “with all your attainment you cannot sit in the lower place”. You are wrong! Subdue that flesh. Obey the Holy Spirit (the something) you will not be disgraced.

3. Train and discipline your spirit to be humble. If Jesus learnt humility and you are a child of God you can learn it. Phil 2:5-9. Our flesh is boastful, proud, put it under control. You can.

4. Make it a prayer point. Let’s face it we all have something we always want to show off. If you always want to show off your beauty, your race, your faith, cars, house, intellectual prowess to make you feel better and demean others, it is a Satanic spirit. That is why he was thrown out of heaven. Ask God to deal with that satanic spirit. You cannot do it in the flesh.

5. Have an accountability partner. When you know you have the spirit of pride and you have been disgraced a couple of times, or people disdain you and you know it and you genuinely want to get rid of it- be accountable to someone who can help you. Your spouse, genuine friend, parent, mentor, pastor or church or community  leader. Ask the person to be praying for you and correct you. Don’t argue with them. Don’t blame the people correcting you. Take their corrections When Nathan corrected King David about his inappropriate,promiscuous and murderous behaviour he came down from his high horse repented and today he is heroic king in Israel. 2 King 12:1-14. Compare him with King Asa when corrected by Hanani the seer who was wroth with the seer and God struck him with disease. 2 Chr 16:7-12. 

Conclusion: Ronald Reagan, recalling an occasion when he was governor of California and made a speech in Mexico City: “After I had finished speaking, I sat down to a rather unenthusiastic applause, and I was a little embarrassed. The speaker who followed me spoke in Spanish-which I didn’t understand-and he was being applauded about every paragraph. To hide my embarrassment, I started clapping before everyone else and longer than anyone else until our ambassador leaned over and said, ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you. He’s interpreting your speech.’” 

The truth is people know your worth and will respect, acknowledge, applaud, recognize, value, honour and celebrate you, don’t push it. Shalom!