“Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD” (Proverbs 16:5)
It is generally believed that pride in one’s self is a good and healthy thing to possess. Why then is pride singled out as such an abomination in God’s book? There are many reasons.
Pride keeps us from humbling ourselves when we are wrong. It keeps us stubbornly holding on to our own way. It lifts us up and causes us to put others down. Pride is the one source of all contention and strife. (Prov. 13:10) It is the catalyst for a thousand conflicts and the reason reconciliation fails. Pride irritates, infuriates, and causes us to despise a world that is incompetent in our eyes. Pride shows us who we are, not who God is. Pride will not tolerate any indignity shown and fuels a spirit of hatred and revenge. Pride takes away all nobility and patience of spirit; it prevents the working of kindness and mercy. Pride turns off both God and man. It hopes to attract, but it repels. It wants praise, but it earns shame. It would have us beautiful, but only makes us ugly. It craves the attentions of a multitude, but leaves us isolated, alone and bitter.
Pride is a corrupt tree that has a thousand corrupt branches; keeping us closer to hell and further from heaven than any other sin. Pride is perverse and Luciferic, having nothing in common with the nature of God. Pride bristles at being told what to do and will not seek God’s involvement in its affairs. Pride is the bottom line reason for man’s resistance to God and the “abomination that makes desolate.” Pride establishes man as his own god and deprives him of the presence and influence of the true God in his heart. Pride, and nothing else, is the chief underlying cause of man’s eternal damnation. God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.
If you repent of nothing else, begin with pride. Hate what God hates.