Have you ever had a crappy day? Maybe you’ve heard that you need more self esteem to feel better about yourself. With a little inward change of mind you can see yourself as the good person you truly are. What is self esteem in reality? Pride. Satan is a mastermind at restyling sins into, what seems like, harmless little packages. He does all he can to get our mind off of others and back on ourselves. Pride is ultimately the root of all our sins.
In Christianity we believe that it is not by our own doing that we accomplish anything of value but God through us, empowering us. As C. S. Lewis stated, pride “..is the complete anti-God state of mind.” I would also say pride is the complete god state of mind too. That is when we are prideful we are disregarding God and putting ourselves in a god state. Pride goes against everything we adhere to and know about christianity. “It was through Pride that the devil became the devil.” Satan will tell you to look inward and have more pride or self esteem when our identity and joy are not within ourselves but within Christ Jesus. Once satan has us in a prideful state of mind he has won his battle and we are no longer thinking outwardly about the things of Christ but inwardly about ourselves.
Now we could leave it at that and tell you not to be prideful but I think that brings up another problem. As C. S. Lewis correctly stated, “the virtue opposite to [pride], in Christian morals, is called Humility.” So naturally if you're trying not to be prideful then you will do the opposite and be humble. I’ve personally been in this place before and I realized I was prideful so I decided I would try to focus on humility so I could be humble. The problem with trying to do that is that I was still making it about me. Which is what? Pride. The devil loves to play games with us. He like us to think we're doing the right thing but it really depends on the motives behind your actions. As my pastor said “if you want to grow in humility, don’t focus on humility.” If you get the focus off yourself and back onto others and the things of Christ you will find yourself a more humble person, knowing that you are nothing with out our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
