Compare and Contrast
How diligently are you looking for any evidence of pride in your life?
Verse of the Day
‘Oh, that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees! Then I will not be ashamed when I compare my life with your commands.’
Today’s Devotional
Today’s verse sounds like a prayer: “Please God, help my actions to align with what your Word instructs.” And if there is something we are repeatedly told, in both the Old and New Testaments, it’s that God opposes our pride. We need help to align our actions with humility.
In the book Brokenness, by Nancy Leigh DeMoss, she teaches what humility looks like in the life of a Christian, which is to be broken before the Lord. She writes that “true brokenness is the breaking of my self-will, so that the life and spirit of the Lord Jesus may be released through me. It is my humble and obedient response to the conviction of God’s Word and His Holy Spirit.”
She devotes an entire chapter of this book to the contrast between what pride versus brokenness looks like in our lives. The first time I read through this…it was painful. I was convicted. We are going to break it up over a few days. So buckle up, and invite the Holy Spirit to convict your heart where needed. Because surely we are desperate to see and acknowledge our pride so that we can confess it and ask the Lord to remove it. In doing this, we can embody today’s verse. “Oh, that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees! Then I will not be ashamed when I compare my life with your commands.”
IN OUR ATTITUDES TOWARD OTHERS
Proud people focus on the failure of others and can readily point out those faults. Broken people are more conscious of their own spiritual need than of anyone else’s.
Proud people have a critical fault finding spirit. They look at everyone else’s faults with a microscope but their own with a telescope. Broken people are compassionate – they have the kind of love that overlooks a multitude of sins; they can forgive much because they know how much they have been forgiven.
Proud people are especially prone to criticize those in positions of authority—their pastor, their boss, their husband, their parents—and they talk to others about the faults they see. Broken people revere, encourage, and lift up those that God has placed in positions of authority, and they talk to God in intercession, rather than gossiping about the faults they see in others.
Proud people are self-righteous; they think highly of themselves and look down on others. Broken people think the best of others; they esteem others as better than themselves.
Proud people have an independent, self-sufficient spirit. Broken people have a dependent spirit; they recognize their need for God and for others.
ATTITUDES ABOUT RIGHTS
Proud people have to prove that they are right—they have to get the last word. Broken people are willing to yield the right to be right.
Proud people claim rights and have a demanding spirit. Broken people yield their rights and have a meek spirit.
Proud people are self-protective of their time, their rights, and their reputation. Broken people are self-denying and self-sacrificing.
So what do you see? Are you proud in some areas and broken in others? Or, like me, do you see evidence of both pride and humility in the same area? My hope and prayer is that there is progress, however haltingly, in removing pride and growth in humility. “Oh, that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees! Then I will not be ashamed when I compare my life with your commands.”
Journal Prompts
Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.
Where do you see evidence of (or growth in) brokenness? How do you see the kindness of God in growing you in humility and/or brokenness?
Where do you see evidence of pride?
Write a prayer of confession to God for the pride that you see.
Invite God to remove the pride from your heart. Ask Him what that means for you today.
Write a prayer of thanksgiving that God is willing to help you in becoming more like Him.