Beware of pride. It is the most subtle temptation. Pride can inflate your ego, telling you how great you are. Pride can cause you to become self-righteous, telling you how much better you are than others. Pride will flatter you, telling you things that you love to hear. Beware! Pride can take you captive, when all other temptations fail.
Pride makes men boast of all that they have done, even what they have done for God. Pride causes people to boast of how good they are. Pride produces a self-righteousness that can never please God. Pride simply does not understand the grace of God. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Pride will ruin your prayer life, making you think that you are better than others. Pride prays this way, "God, I thank You that I am not like other men - extortioners, unjust, adulterers . . ." (Luke 18:11). Pride will boast before God, never confessing any sin. Pride dares to boast of self before God. Pride will never ask for God's mercy.
Pride can never earn your way to God. It will, to the contrary, always separate you from God. When anyone humbles himself before God, pride is defeated. Humility confesses sin and repents. Humility will ask God for mercy. Humility receives the grace of God in Christ. "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (1 Peter 5:5).
