Spiritual pride says, "Look what happens when I pray!" People with spiritual pride are always drawing attention to themselves. Spiritual pride is a constant threat to successful believers and ministers. It's a constant battle to run from.
Yes, you have to run from it. The second it comes knocking at your door, tell it to get lost.
You've got to fight spiritual pride every day of your life. You can't get rid of it. It will always pop up its ugly head. But you don't have to give in to it. If you do, you're dead. Spiritual pride is a killer.
My grandmother once lived with Oral Roberts' mother. Momma Roberts was a little woman and Oral was very tall. But she'd grab hold of Oral's ear and pull him down and say, "Oral, stay small in your own eyes. I don't care how great people think you are or say you are. The day that you start thinking that you're great is the day that you'll fall. Stay away from that pride. Stay small in your own eyes. Know that God has made you."
Every believer needs to remember that. God has made us who we are. We need to know how to receive compliments graciously without letting them puff us up.
The Word of God says that knowledge puffs up. There are some people today who actually lust after knowledge. They run from meeting to meeting to meeting to get some new revelation. Never mind that. They're not being doers of the Word with what they already have. They just want to accumulate more knowledge. They grow dry and stagnant because they aren't doers of the Word anymore, but merely hearers.
The original sin in the Garden of Eden came about because Eve lusted after knowledge. She chose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Her lust for knowledge was her downfall.
Drug addicts lust for more and more drugs. They may start off just smoking marijuana, but before you know it, they want something stronger. Then as they go along, that doesn't satisfy anymore. Their senses become dull, and they crave more and more and more. Nothing really satisfies them after a while; they become totally preoccupied with feeding their lust.
I've seen this with some very materialistic people as well. They want more and more and more things. They buy and buy and buy, but eventually what they're buying doesn't mean anything to them any more. They just get caught up in lusting after things.
It's the same with many Christians and the desire for more and more knowledge. It's called spiritual pride. It's a killer. The cure for spiritual pride is humility.
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