Warning: Pride will Destroy your Life

He Finally Got His

Remember that man you saw last week walking, now staggering down the street? The one with the brown paper bag covering up the bottle that he was carrying? And you remembered back to your days in high school. You remember the group that liked to party.

You were the son of a good Christian family and were laughed at because you wouldn’t come to the party. And they joked and told their stories about getting drunk and carrying on. And now you proudly say to yourself, he was probably one of those. I guess he finally got his.

Remember the one you saw down on the street corner with the sign asking for money for food? His clothes were torn and dirty. A shopping cart sat nearby with all of his worldly goods in it. You remembered back to a time when you were ten or twelve and you took that first paper route. You remember the kids that wouldn’t work.

Their parents gave them an allowance. You went on to that job at McDonalds and worked your way through high school. Meanwhile you still remember that same group that wouldn’t work. They always wanted to hang out while you were working. And you went on and worked your way through college and got a good job, meanwhile that group was still just hanging out. And proudly you think, surely he was one of that group. I guess he finally got his.

We Have all Done It

Maybe it was the young lady who came to service one day with three or four kids in tow. No father in sight. You went forward to pray with her only to find out that these children were from different affairs that she’d had, different love interests. Though you prayed with her and showed an interest in her needs in the back of your mind you remembered those girls in school that always had the interest of all the boys in town.

They dressed in such a way as to catch a young man’s eye. Stories circulated about their activities when they went on dates. And though as a Christian you know you should care about that young lady, somewhere inside of you is that pride that says I guess she got what was coming to her.

We Have All Done It

We’ve all done it. As Men, we are programmed for it. Take a group of our teens out one night. Just drive them down the street. Listen and observe the comments that they make about their fellow teenagers, about men and women they see on the streets. We judge and condemn in our pride failing to stop for much more than a moment to consider their souls. Surely they’ve gotten what they deserve. But by the grace of God we have been spared!

We are all men like David, with passions and lusts and greed capable of just as great a sin. But God has worked in our lives, transforming us into new creations by His grace, by His power. He died on the cross so that we could have new life and He died on the cross for each one of them that we look upon with such pride and arrogance.