“Better to be lowly in spirit along with the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud.” – Proverbs 16:19
Over the last couple of days, we have talked about the consequences of pride. We specifically want to talk about three consequences. First, pride prevents momentum in your relationship with the Lord. Second, pride hinders your relationships with other people. Today, we are going to talk about the third consequence. When you are prideful, you deny the Holy Spirit the opportunity to work in your life.
Let me tell you why.
Once pride enters our lives, we stop praying because we don’t think we need God anymore. And even if we do pray, we pray with a spirit of entitlement instead of praying with a spirit of humility. And a spirit of entitlement is a great indicator that pride is a problem in your life.
When you are filled with pride, you cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit. They both cannot coexist. We know that the Holy Spirit working in us can transform our lives. In our own sinful nature, we will never become all that we were meant to be. But when we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, He gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is what allows us to resist the temptations of the world, including the act of pride, and to choose to live in a way that honors God. This leaves us with a very simple choice: do we want to honor our own wants and desires or do we want to honor God?
When we choose to honor God, we make room for the Holy Spirit who can do special things within us, things we could never do apart from God.
If we want to make sure we are not preventing momentum in our relationship with God, hindering our relationship with others, or denying the Holy Spirit the ability to work within us, we must continue to pray and actively choose to deny the pride that wants to rear its ugly head into our lives!