Episode 326: I’m Talkin. . .Pride

I’m talking episode 326 for July 14th, 2024.

This is Joel from the I’m Talking microcast, where I share my thoughts on a topic that has piqued my interest this past week.

This week we’re talking pride.

So the one thing that surprised me about the word pride is that I haven’t over 300 plus episodes talked about this word, and I’ve tried not to repeat words, and that may be why I haven’t talked about it, but still it feels like a word that I would have mentioned at some point.

But now I have, and now we’re going to talk about it for a little bit.

So the first thing that I was thinking about is, is pride always bad?

Is the word pride just have a negative connotation?

And I think sometimes it does, and maybe it should, and I’ll talk about that a little bit later.

And the other thing that I thought about is pride, a world problem.

You know, often in my microcast, I’m contrasting how the world might see a word versus how we as Christians see the word.

And when I think of the word pride, I think there’s a common reaction often to that word.

And I think that is the reality of the word pride is it’s a reaction issue word, not necessarily good or bad, but, oh, sorry, it is bad in how we react to it.

And therein lies the challenge for those of us who call ourselves Christians.

So one of the things, one of the problems, or maybe the major problem with pride is who is first?

You know, who, who holds the highest position in our lives?

Well, as Christians, we need to think about whom we represent.

The fact that Christ should be on the altar of our lives means that we have to put ourselves second that oftentimes we have to think about ourselves last even, and, and pride does not often allow us to do that.

In fact, maybe pride never allows us to do that.

So then it got me thinking about the difference between the word proud and the word pride.

And I think there are often times in my life, at least where I have been proud of either things that I have done accomplishments I have made in the strength of my walk as a Christian or in my, um, abilities that God has given me in a technical sense, um, or proud of my kids and their accomplishments.

But I think pride ends up putting yourself above others.

It means in being proud of something you’ve done and you find yourself thinking of yourself better than, or more than someone else, then that’s when pride becomes a sin.

And I think that God dresses that off, addresses that word often in the scriptures and, and I think it’s a matter of stance before God as to whether pride is a problem or not.

And I think often, uh, Jesus talking about the, the sinner, as it were, who is praying with his head bowed, thinking himself unworthy to approach the throne of God versus a Pharisee who is looking with his eyes up and, and thanking God that he is not like other people.

So that is the essence of pride is that we put ourselves first, that we hold ourselves higher than others, and that we refuse to humble ourselves behold before a holy God and treat others with love and respect.

So as Christians, our challenge is to not let pride get in the way of us following Jesus Christ and letting others see that light in us.

Until next week, this is Joel from the I’m talking microcast.