pride

You and I were made to need intimacy with our Maker. In our anti-Christian culture, we need the power of God to embrace and defend the truth of God. As Charlie Chaplin wisely observed, “You’ll never find a rainbow if you’re looking down.”

For hundreds of years, theologians have asserted that pride is a great and destructive sin.

When God is our strength, we stay humble. When we lean on his sufficient grace, we know that our self-indulgence never leads to peace and joy. It's one of the Bible's wonderful ironies – you can't be a great man until you know that only God is great. When you grapple with that and believe it from the heart, it builds a foundation that keeps you from falling.

Personal authenticity is the path to flourishing, we’re told. No matter the subject, the message is the same: your body is yours to do with as you wish. So long as you’re not harming others, you’re free to do what makes you happy. Why, then, would anyone want to hear a message that insists we are sinners in need of salvation and calls us to repentance, contrition, and submission to God? Since hell appears nowhere on our list of top fears, why not live and let live? Or so our enemy would have us believe, right up to the day when it is too late to believe.

On Sunday, a Dallas megachurch pastor who confessed to the sin of pride last summer tendered his resignation.