God’s opponent.

James 4:10
10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. (NIV)

The Bible says God opposes the proud. Who would ever want to be the opponent of God, yet this is what pride does to us.

It is not that God opposes us so much as He opposes the spirit of pride in us. God is love, but pride is fear. Pride boils up in us when we are fearful of what others think of us. We are afraid they will not approve, love, or want to be around us unless we puff ourselves up.

Pride also increases our expectations of others. We fully embrace the person we pretend to be fooling ourselves into thinking it is really who we are. Then, we expect people to treat us accordingly. Because we have fooled ourselves into thinking we are better than other people, we expect to be treated better by other people. And this leads to offense. We get offended when people treat us as if we are less than who we have presented ourselves to be.

Our focus is on how people are treating us, responding to us. We are so focused on their action trying to decide if they are treating us as we desire to be treated, that servanthood is the furthest thing from our mind. We want people to cater to us, and our desire for this are blinders on our own eyes to what they need and how they need to be loved. Pride keeps us from loving. And how can we have communion with the God who is love when we stop loving His children?

Pride is the work of the enemy and God will oppose it in us. We have the choice to humble ourselves or He will humble us. Life is much better when we humble ourselves than God being forced to humble us. It is better for us to remind ourselves that we are not God, but He loves us as we are, warts and all. When I remember this and know God’s love is more than enough, then I no longer have to pretend to be anything but who I really am. I can stop trying to earn their love because any love that must be earned is not love at all.

Prayer: Lord, fill me to overflowing with your love that I may be contented in your love alone.

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